Interracialism, Christian Socialism, and Cooperative Farming in Jim Crow Mississippi
In the winter of 1936, two dozen black and white ex-sharecropping families settled on some two thousand acres in the rural Mississippi Delta, one of the most insular and oppressive regions in the nation. Remaking the Rural South, by Robert Hunt Ferguson, chronicles their story, and is the first book-length study of Delta Cooperative Farm (1936-42) and its descendant, Providence Farm (1938-56). These communities arose in reaction to the exploitation of small-scale, dispossessed farmers, and began a twenty-year experiment in interracialism, Christian socialism, cooperative farming, and civil and economic activism.
Modeled after cooperative farms in Japan and Soviet Russia, the farms drew on internationalist practices of cooperative communalism, and pragmatically challenged Jim Crow segregation and plantation labor. In addition to the income from farming, the communities also had the backing of philanthropist Sherwood Eddy, educator Charles Spurgeon Johnson, and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who helped get the farms get off the ground in their early years. The staff and residents of the farms, however, were everyday people who managed to develop a cooperative economy, operate a desegregated health clinic, and manage a credit union, all of which combined to create a working and loving community.
Unfortunately, even with these advances both communities eventually met their demise, with Delta being forced to close due to complications from WWII, and Providence succumbing to economic boycotts and outside threats from white racists. But the legacy of the farms lives on, and in this book Ferguson shows how a small group of committed people can challenge hegemonic social and economic structures simply by going about their daily routines.
Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:
“While it is a historically valuable, though sometimes dense, product of archival research, Remaking the Rural South, ‘a story of birth, death and hope on southern soil’ (p. 12), is also inspiring.” — Peter Slade, Journal of American Ethnic History
“Remaking the Rural South, though a story of one narrow effort, brings an important historical case to bear on the still pressing questions of racial and economic justice in the U.S. South. Readers should take heed in case another moment of opportunity comes.” — Ansley L. Quiros The Journal of Southern History
For more information on the publication, click here.