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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 11. The Southern Plantation Economy and the Negro Farmer - 6. The Negro Landowner - 7. Historical Reasons for the Relative Lack of Negro Farm Owners
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240 An American Dilemma
South, leaving less of first choice than of second and third choice land to
the middle-sized and small owner-operators. Cash tenants and share renters
used to take an intermediate position, but are now pretty close to the owner-
operators in this respect. White owners showed a higher average acreage
value in 1940 ($27.27) than colored owners ($23.89). The decline in
acreage value since 1920 was in every tenure group less pronounced for
whites than for Negro operators.
Size of farm increases with tenure status. In every case, however, Negroes
have much smaller farms than whites. The consequence is that the average
size of Negro owner-operated farms (60.4 acres) is about the same as for
white sharecroppers (58.9 acres). The mean value of land and buildings of
the farm operated by colored owners ($1,443) lower even than that of
the white sharecropper^s plot ($1,908). The value of implements and
machinery that the colored owner has ($90) is only a fraction of that which
the white owner has at his disposal ($322),®^
7. Historical Reasons for the Relative Lack of
Negro Farm Owners
Even apart from the general economic trends in Southern agriculture,
there are several reasons why the Negro has been unable to make a better
showing as an independent farm owner.
There is his background in slavery, and the fact that he scarcely ever has
been encouraged to show much initiative or been taught that it pays to
look after oneself rather than to be dependent. More often he has been
given to understand that his racial status provides an excuse for not being
able to shift for himself, and that modest acceptance of a low position would
rate a reward bigger than that offered for courageous attempts to reach a
higher position.®® In the rural South he has certainly not enjoyed much of
that kind of legal security which is a necessary condition for successful
entrepreneurship j
at any rate, he has had far less of it than the whites
with whom he has had to compete." His best security has been to become
associated with a white person of some status in the community j
and that,
in most cases, has presupposed an employer-employee or landlord-tenant
relationship.’^ Since his earnings as a farmhand or tenant have always tended
to be lower than those of white workers, he has had less chance to save
enough money for the purpose of buying land. The belief that he is racially
inferior and the social Isolation between the two castes have also affected
the credit rating even of those individual Negroes who otherwise would
have been excellent risks. His educational opportunities in the rural South
have been extremely poor.
Although the influence of such general conditions cannot be measured,
• See Part VI.
See Chapter 26, Section 2.
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