“The meat company started with a set up at a farmers market, then I added a website. Now I’m selling all my meats, I have contracts, huge contracts, the Houston Food Bank. I have a contract in Washington DC. I literally just got off the phone call before here with a major restaurant chain that I’m possibly going to sell […]
Black Farmers in Texas Part III
by Benjamin Brown Black land loss ranked among the most pressing civil rights issues of the late 20th century, and yet it remained largely unaddressed in the sphere of public policy. Andy Welch described the Hightower Texas Department as the coming of a bright new day. “The Hightower election and administration was a big wake up. … The Texas Department […]
Black Farmers in Texas
by Benjamin Brown Part 1 In 1973, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz rendered clear his approach to farm policy: “get big or get out.” It marked the latest episode in a century-long feud between Wall Street and the Main Street of agrarian America. In the wake of the Civil War, the federal government pursued a series of measures designed […]
Building Hope: The New Deal and Texas Farms (2007)
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the U.S. Government created many programs to help unemployed Americans. The Building Hope video documentary tells the story of three different communities that were built in Texas through support from President Roosevelt’s administration to address widespread poverty among tenant farmers and sharecroppers. In “Ropesville”, original settlers tell the story of building a farm […]