The Dream Realized?: African American Landownership in Central Georgia between Reconstruction and World War Two

Agricultural History

Volumn 72, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 298-311

  Schultz, Mark R ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AFRICAN AMERICANS; AGRICULTURAL HISTORY; CULTURAL HISTORY; HISTORICAL STUDY; LANDOWNERSHIP; RURAL HISTORY; TWENTIETH CENTURY;

USA, GEORGIA;

EID: 0031763337     PISSN: 00021482     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (48)

1. For a description of the challenges faced by the majority of freedmen in their quest for land, see African American Life in the Post-Emancipation South, 1861-1900, ed. Donald G. Nieman, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994); Joseph P. Reidy, From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Gerald David Jaynes, Branches Without Roots: Genesis of the Black Working Class in the American South, 1862-1882 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Charles L. Flynn Jr., White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth Century Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983). For the general context for this paper, see Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987); Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (New York: BasicBooks, 1986); Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); Gilbert C. Fite, Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984); John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).
2. For a description of the challenges faced by the majority of freedmen in their quest for land, see African American Life in the Post-Emancipation South, 1861-1900, ed. Donald G. Nieman, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994); Joseph P. Reidy, From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Gerald David Jaynes, Branches Without Roots: Genesis of the Black Working Class in the American South, 1862-1882 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Charles L. Flynn Jr., White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth Century Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983). For the general context for this paper, see Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987); Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (New York: BasicBooks, 1986); Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); Gilbert C. Fite, Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984); John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).
3. For a description of the challenges faced by the majority of freedmen in their quest for land, see African American Life in the Post-Emancipation South, 1861-1900, ed. Donald G. Nieman, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994); Joseph P. Reidy, From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Gerald David Jaynes, Branches Without Roots: Genesis of the Black Working Class in the American South, 1862-1882 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Charles L. Flynn Jr., White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth Century Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983). For the general context for this paper, see Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987); Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (New York: BasicBooks, 1986); Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); Gilbert C. Fite, Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984); John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).
4. For a description of the challenges faced by the majority of freedmen in their quest for land, see African American Life in the Post-Emancipation South, 1861-1900, ed. Donald G. Nieman, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994); Joseph P. Reidy, From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Gerald David Jaynes, Branches Without Roots: Genesis of the Black Working Class in the American South, 1862-1882 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Charles L. Flynn Jr., White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth Century Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983). For the general context for this paper, see Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987); Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (New York: BasicBooks, 1986); Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); Gilbert C. Fite, Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984); John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).
5. For a description of the challenges faced by the majority of freedmen in their quest for land, see African American Life in the Post-Emancipation South, 1861-1900, ed. Donald G. Nieman, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994); Joseph P. Reidy, From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Gerald David Jaynes, Branches Without Roots: Genesis of the Black Working Class in the American South, 1862-1882 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Charles L. Flynn Jr., White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth Century Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983). For the general context for this paper, see Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987); Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (New York: BasicBooks, 1986); Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); Gilbert C. Fite, Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984); John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).
6. For a description of the challenges faced by the majority of freedmen in their quest for land, see African American Life in the Post-Emancipation South, 1861-1900, ed. Donald G. Nieman, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994); Joseph P. Reidy, From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Gerald David Jaynes, Branches Without Roots: Genesis of the Black Working Class in the American South, 1862-1882 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Charles L. Flynn Jr., White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth Century Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983). For the general context for this paper, see Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987); Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (New York: BasicBooks, 1986); Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); Gilbert C. Fite, Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984); John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).
7. For a description of the challenges faced by the majority of freedmen in their quest for land, see African American Life in the Post-Emancipation South, 1861-1900, ed. Donald G. Nieman, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994); Joseph P. Reidy, From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Gerald David Jaynes, Branches Without Roots: Genesis of the Black Working Class in the American South, 1862-1882 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Charles L. Flynn Jr., White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth Century Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983). For the general context for this paper, see Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987); Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (New York: BasicBooks, 1986); Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); Gilbert C. Fite, Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984); John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).
8. For a description of the challenges faced by the majority of freedmen in their quest for land, see African American Life in the Post-Emancipation South, 1861-1900, ed. Donald G. Nieman, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994); Joseph P. Reidy, From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Gerald David Jaynes, Branches Without Roots: Genesis of the Black Working Class in the American South, 1862-1882 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Charles L. Flynn Jr., White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth Century Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983). For the general context for this paper, see Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987); Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (New York: BasicBooks, 1986); Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); Gilbert C. Fite, Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984); John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).
9. For a description of the challenges faced by the majority of freedmen in their quest for land, see African American Life in the Post-Emancipation South, 1861-1900, ed. Donald G. Nieman, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994); Joseph P. Reidy, From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Gerald David Jaynes, Branches Without Roots: Genesis of the Black Working Class in the American South, 1862-1882 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Charles L. Flynn Jr., White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth Century Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983). For the general context for this paper, see Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987); Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (New York: BasicBooks, 1986); Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); Gilbert C. Fite, Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984); John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).
10. For a description of the challenges faced by the majority of freedmen in their quest for land, see African American Life in the Post-Emancipation South, 1861-1900, ed. Donald G. Nieman, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994); Joseph P. Reidy, From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Gerald David Jaynes, Branches Without Roots: Genesis of the Black Working Class in the American South, 1862-1882 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Charles L. Flynn Jr., White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth Century Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983). For the general context for this paper, see Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987); Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (New York: BasicBooks, 1986); Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); Gilbert C. Fite, Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984); John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).
11. Anonymous, interview by author, Sparta, Georgia, 20 July 1995. All interviews cited in this essay were conducted by the author with residents or former residents of Hancock County, Georgia. This essay is drawn from "The Unsolid South: An Oral History of Race, Class and Geography in Hancock County, Georgia, 1910-1960" (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, forthcoming), based on about one hundred and fifty separate interviews with Hancock County people, black and white, men and women, planters, yeomen and tenants, as well as lifelong residents and migrants to other places. Most of the interviews have been tape recorded.
12. Katie Hunt, interviews by author, Washington, D.C., 15 June 1990, and Sparta, Georgia, 25 September 1995.
13. Many studies in the past two decades have commented on the diversity of experiences collected under the title of "the" slave experience. See especially Ira Berlin, "Time, Space, and the Evolution of Afro-American Society in British Mainland North America," American Historical Review 85 (February 1980): 44-78. A healthy literature has detailed the many ways that slaves contested with their masters for a limited degree of control over their lives. Strangely, as the literature on slavery has increasingly emphasized the variation of experience and the capacity for resistance, the literature describing the African American experience after slavery - and especially after Reconstruction - has shown a tendency to emphasize the "sudden" homogeneity of the southern landscape and the fruitlessness of resistance. W. E. B. DuBois, on the other hand, in 1908 wrote: "Few modern groups show a greater internal differentiation of social conditions than the Negro American, and the failure to realize this is the cause of much confusion. The forward movement of a social group is not the compact march of an army, where the distance covered is practically the same for all, but is rather the straggling of a crowd, where some of whom hasten, some linger, some turn back, some reach far-off goals before others even start, and yet the crowd moves on."; W. E. B. DuBois, ed., The Negro American Family (Atlanta: Atlanta University Press, 1908), 127.
14. Many studies in the past two decades have commented on the diversity of experiences collected under the title of "the" slave experience. See especially Ira Berlin, "Time, Space, and the Evolution of Afro-American Society in British Mainland North America," American Historical Review 85 (February 1980): 44-78. A healthy literature has detailed the many ways that slaves contested with their masters for a limited degree of control over their lives. Strangely, as the literature on slavery has increasingly emphasized the variation of experience and the capacity for resistance, the literature describing the African American experience after slavery - and especially after Reconstruction - has shown a tendency to emphasize the "sudden" homogeneity of the southern landscape and the fruitlessness of resistance. W. E. B. DuBois, on the other hand, in 1908 wrote: "Few modern groups show a greater internal differentiation of social conditions than the Negro American, and the failure to realize this is the cause of much confusion. The forward movement of a social group is not the compact march of an army, where the distance covered is practically the same for all, but is rather the straggling of a crowd, where some of whom hasten, some linger, some turn back, some reach far-off goals before others even start, and yet the crowd moves on."; W. E. B. DuBois, ed., The Negro American Family (Atlanta: Atlanta University Press, 1908), 127.
15. Although historians have devoted nearly exclusive attention to the experience of the dependent majority of poor black farmers, rural sociologists from the 1920s through the 1940s amassed an impressive number of studies that explored the contradictions between the concrete presence of upper-class black southerners and the abstract logic of the caste system. W. E. B. DuBois, "The Negro in the Cotton Belt: Some Social Sketches," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 22 [May], 1899, 401-17; "The Negro Landholder of Georgia," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 35 [July], 1901, 647-777; DuBois, Negro American Family; Booker T. Washington, The Negro in the South (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs Press, 1907); Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1930); The Economic Status of Negroes (Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1933); Shadow of the Plantation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934); Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties (1936; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937); Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South (1939; New York: Atheneum, 1968); Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941).
16. Although historians have devoted nearly exclusive attention to the experience of the dependent majority of poor black farmers, rural sociologists from the 1920s through the 1940s amassed an impressive number of studies that explored the contradictions between the concrete presence of upper-class black southerners and the abstract logic of the caste system. W. E. B. DuBois, "The Negro in the Cotton Belt: Some Social Sketches," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 22 [May], 1899, 401-17; "The Negro Landholder of Georgia," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 35 [July], 1901, 647-777; DuBois, Negro American Family; Booker T. Washington, The Negro in the South (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs Press, 1907); Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1930); The Economic Status of Negroes (Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1933); Shadow of the Plantation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934); Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties (1936; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937); Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South (1939; New York: Atheneum, 1968); Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941).
17. Although historians have devoted nearly exclusive attention to the experience of the dependent majority of poor black farmers, rural sociologists from the 1920s through the 1940s amassed an impressive number of studies that explored the contradictions between the concrete presence of upper-class black southerners and the abstract logic of the caste system. W. E. B. DuBois, "The Negro in the Cotton Belt: Some Social Sketches," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 22 [May], 1899, 401-17; "The Negro Landholder of Georgia," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 35 [July], 1901, 647-777; DuBois, Negro American Family; Booker T. Washington, The Negro in the South (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs Press, 1907); Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1930); The Economic Status of Negroes (Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1933); Shadow of the Plantation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934); Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties (1936; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937); Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South (1939; New York: Atheneum, 1968); Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941).
18. Although historians have devoted nearly exclusive attention to the experience of the dependent majority of poor black farmers, rural sociologists from the 1920s through the 1940s amassed an impressive number of studies that explored the contradictions between the concrete presence of upper-class black southerners and the abstract logic of the caste system. W. E. B. DuBois, "The Negro in the Cotton Belt: Some Social Sketches," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 22 [May], 1899, 401-17; "The Negro Landholder of Georgia," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 35 [July], 1901, 647-777; DuBois, Negro American Family; Booker T. Washington, The Negro in the South (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs Press, 1907); Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1930); The Economic Status of Negroes (Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1933); Shadow of the Plantation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934); Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties (1936; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937); Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South (1939; New York: Atheneum, 1968); Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941).
19. Although historians have devoted nearly exclusive attention to the experience of the dependent majority of poor black farmers, rural sociologists from the 1920s through the 1940s amassed an impressive number of studies that explored the contradictions between the concrete presence of upper-class black southerners and the abstract logic of the caste system. W. E. B. DuBois, "The Negro in the Cotton Belt: Some Social Sketches," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 22 [May], 1899, 401-17; "The Negro Landholder of Georgia," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 35 [July], 1901, 647-777; DuBois, Negro American Family; Booker T. Washington, The Negro in the South (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs Press, 1907); Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1930); The Economic Status of Negroes (Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1933); Shadow of the Plantation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934); Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties (1936; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937); Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South (1939; New York: Atheneum, 1968); Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941).
20. Although historians have devoted nearly exclusive attention to the experience of the dependent majority of poor black farmers, rural sociologists from the 1920s through the 1940s amassed an impressive number of studies that explored the contradictions between the concrete presence of upper-class black southerners and the abstract logic of the caste system. W. E. B. DuBois, "The Negro in the Cotton Belt: Some Social Sketches," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 22 [May], 1899, 401-17; "The Negro Landholder of Georgia," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 35 [July], 1901, 647-777; DuBois, Negro American Family; Booker T. Washington, The Negro in the South (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs Press, 1907); Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1930); The Economic Status of Negroes (Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1933); Shadow of the Plantation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934); Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties (1936; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937); Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South (1939; New York: Atheneum, 1968); Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941).
21. Although historians have devoted nearly exclusive attention to the experience of the dependent majority of poor black farmers, rural sociologists from the 1920s through the 1940s amassed an impressive number of studies that explored the contradictions between the concrete presence of upper-class black southerners and the abstract logic of the caste system. W. E. B. DuBois, "The Negro in the Cotton Belt: Some Social Sketches," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 22 [May], 1899, 401-17; "The Negro Landholder of Georgia," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 35 [July], 1901, 647-777; DuBois, Negro American Family; Booker T. Washington, The Negro in the South (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs Press, 1907); Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1930); The Economic Status of Negroes (Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1933); Shadow of the Plantation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934); Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties (1936; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937); Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South (1939; New York: Atheneum, 1968); Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941).
22. Although historians have devoted nearly exclusive attention to the experience of the dependent majority of poor black farmers, rural sociologists from the 1920s through the 1940s amassed an impressive number of studies that explored the contradictions between the concrete presence of upper-class black southerners and the abstract logic of the caste system. W. E. B. DuBois, "The Negro in the Cotton Belt: Some Social Sketches," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 22 [May], 1899, 401-17; "The Negro Landholder of Georgia," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 35 [July], 1901, 647-777; DuBois, Negro American Family; Booker T. Washington, The Negro in the South (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs Press, 1907); Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1930); The Economic Status of Negroes (Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1933); Shadow of the Plantation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934); Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties (1936; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937); Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South (1939; New York: Atheneum, 1968); Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941).
23. Although historians have devoted nearly exclusive attention to the experience of the dependent majority of poor black farmers, rural sociologists from the 1920s through the 1940s amassed an impressive number of studies that explored the contradictions between the concrete presence of upper-class black southerners and the abstract logic of the caste system. W. E. B. DuBois, "The Negro in the Cotton Belt: Some Social Sketches," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 22 [May], 1899, 401-17; "The Negro Landholder of Georgia," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 35 [July], 1901, 647-777; DuBois, Negro American Family; Booker T. Washington, The Negro in the South (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs Press, 1907); Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1930); The Economic Status of Negroes (Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1933); Shadow of the Plantation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934); Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties (1936; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937); Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South (1939; New York: Atheneum, 1968); Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941).
24. Although historians have devoted nearly exclusive attention to the experience of the dependent majority of poor black farmers, rural sociologists from the 1920s through the 1940s amassed an impressive number of studies that explored the contradictions between the concrete presence of upper-class black southerners and the abstract logic of the caste system. W. E. B. DuBois, "The Negro in the Cotton Belt: Some Social Sketches," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 22 [May], 1899, 401-17; "The Negro Landholder of Georgia," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 35 [July], 1901, 647-777; DuBois, Negro American Family; Booker T. Washington, The Negro in the South (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs Press, 1907); Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1930); The Economic Status of Negroes (Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1933); Shadow of the Plantation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934); Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties (1936; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937); Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South (1939; New York: Atheneum, 1968); Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941).
25. Although historians have devoted nearly exclusive attention to the experience of the dependent majority of poor black farmers, rural sociologists from the 1920s through the 1940s amassed an impressive number of studies that explored the contradictions between the concrete presence of upper-class black southerners and the abstract logic of the caste system. W. E. B. DuBois, "The Negro in the Cotton Belt: Some Social Sketches," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 22 [May], 1899, 401-17; "The Negro Landholder of Georgia," Department of Labor Bulletin, no. 35 [July], 1901, 647-777; DuBois, Negro American Family; Booker T. Washington, The Negro in the South (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs Press, 1907); Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1930); The Economic Status of Negroes (Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1933); Shadow of the Plantation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934); Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties (1936; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937); Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South (1939; New York: Atheneum, 1968); Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941).
26. Loren Schweninger, Black Property Owners in the South, 1790-1915 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990).
27. Bureau of the Census, Agricultural Census, 1910, vol. 6, 344. In the same year, 51 percent of white Georgia farmers were landowners.
28. John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), 24-26; Bureau of the Census, Negro Population in the United States, 1790-1915 (1918), 712-15.
29. John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), 24-26; Bureau of the Census, Negro Population in the United States, 1790-1915 (1918), 712-15.
30. Hancock County Tax Digests, Georgia State Archives, Atlanta, Georgia; Census Manuscripts, Georgia State Archives, Atlanta, Georgia. As no person or community experiences their region, race, or class in the aggregate but has only their own experience, a number of local community studies are needed to bring into focus the different worlds of rural southerners after Reconstruction.
31. Hancock County Tax Digests, 1874-1950. Throughout the twentieth century, the majority of black landowners in Hancock County controlled between 40 and 200 acres each. The boll weevil came in 1921 and within a decade drove out 30 percent of the black landowners who held between 200 and 500 acres. But most black landowners held on, and the depression that followed seemed to have had no impact on the persistence of the farmers who remained.
32. For the Hubert story, see an excellent family history written by Lester F. Russell, Profile of a Black Heritage (Franklin Square, N.Y.: Graphicopy, 1977), 45-53. Deed Record U, p. 413-14, Sparta Court House, Hancock County, Ga.; Mark Schultz, "A More Satisfying Life on the Farm: Benjamin F. Hubert and the Log Cabin Community" (Master's thesis, University of Georgia, 1989).
33. For the Hubert story, see an excellent family history written by Lester F. Russell, Profile of a Black Heritage (Franklin Square, N.Y.: Graphicopy, 1977), 45-53. Deed Record U, p. 413-14, Sparta Court House, Hancock County, Ga.; Mark Schultz, "A More Satisfying Life on the Farm: Benjamin F. Hubert and the Log Cabin Community" (Master's thesis, University of Georgia, 1989).
34. For the Hubert story, see an excellent family history written by Lester F. Russell, Profile of a Black Heritage (Franklin Square, N.Y.: Graphicopy, 1977), 45-53. Deed Record U, p. 413-14, Sparta Court House, Hancock County, Ga.; Mark Schultz, "A More Satisfying Life on the Farm: Benjamin F. Hubert and the Log Cabin Community" (Master's thesis, University of Georgia, 1989).
35. Another example of brothers working together was related by Mary Simmons, interview by author, rural northwest Hancock County, Ga., 26 July 1995. Walter Green Clayton stated that his parents pooled their resources with his uncle and aunt to purchase land. Interview by author, Sparta, Ga., 2 January 1998.
36. Emmie Mae Harper, interview by author, rural Hancock County near Linton, Ga., 23 September 1994. Arthur Raper, in his sociological study of Greene County - which borders Hancock County to the north - also noted that black would-be purchasers of land often had to be content with substandard land. Raper, Preface to Peasantry, 122.
37. Raper, Preface to Peasantry, 122.
38. For an exploration of this theme in Hancock County, see Mark Schultz, "Interracial Kinship Ties and the Emergence of a Rural Black Middle Class: Hancock County, Georgia, 1865-1920," in Georgia in Black and White: Explorations in the Race Relations of a Southern State, 1865-1950, ed. John Inscoe (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994), 141-72.
39. Raper, Preface to Peasantry, 140; Harper, interview, 23 September 1994.
40. Raper, Preface to Peasantry, 140; Harper, interview, 23 September 1994.
41. Roy Roberts, interview by author, Thomson, Georgia, 31 August 1992.
42. Interviews by author, Hancock County, 1988-96.
43. Ibid.; school attendance rolls for Hancock County, Georgia Department of Education, Georgia Department of Archives, Atlanta, Georgia.
44. Interviews by author, Hancock County, 1988-96. I have found no evidence in Hancock County of a black landowner ever being the target of white violence - and only one time in which a descendant of a black landowner was so attacked. There were, however, many incidents in which white men beat, raped, or killed poorer African Americans. On lynching, see Edward Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 157-58.
45. Samuel Williams, interview by author, Springfield, Georgia, 12 December 1989. Charles Johnson, the black sociologist, believed that avoidance was "the most common type of response to the personal implications of the race system"; Charles S. Johnson, Patterns of Negro Segregation (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943), 267.
46. Hunt, interviews, 15 June 1990 and 25 September 1995.
47. Hancock County Tax Digests, 1890-1944. Black voters in pre-civil rights era Hancock County include Harper, interview, 23 September 1994; and Carlton Morse, interview by author, Fort Valley, Georgia, 20 July 1995.
48. Leo McGee and Robert Boone, eds., The Black Rural Landowner - Endangered Species: Social, Political and Economic Implications (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979).