Black Land Research Articles

Black Power, Land Rights and Academic History

In this article, I discuss certain aspects of Australian Indigenous history of the 1960s and 1970s and critically examine the manner in which this history has been taught and written by non-Indigenous academic historians. What has been the role of white academic historians, and how have their misinterpretations and distortions contributed to the regressive and repressive government policies of today, such as the Northern Territory intervention. The article calls for more Aboriginal university students to consider history as an equally important field of study to law, in terms of changing attitudes in Australian society.

The struggle for black land rights in Brazil: an insider's view on quilombos and the quilombo land movement

In recent years, land movements in many countries of the Global South have played a pivotal role in pressuring their government to pass new land legislation that recognizes both customary and ethnic land rights. In Brazil, Afro-Brazilian land activists lobbied the government to include protection of the territorial and cultural integrity of black rural communities in the 1988 constitution. Since the mid-1990s, the national quilombo movement has effectively mobilized rural black communities around the issues of landownership and the regularization of quilombo territories.

The Economic Experimentation of Nembula Duze/Ira Adams Nembula, 1845 – 1886

This paper gives a short biography of Ira Adams Nembula, the Natal sugarcane manufacturer. Nembula's business and his family have been often mentioned but not fully described before in accounts of Natal's nineteenth-century economy and mission stations. This paper draws on historians' narratives and missionary writings on Nembula from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (American Board), and incorporates information from the archives of the Secretary for Native Affairs (SNA), to look at the life of a man who was described by missionaries as one of the “first fruits” or very first converts to Christianity in Natal, and was a preacher, a pioneering sugarcane producer, and also a transport rider. The paper outlines Nembula's and his mother Mbalasi's position and portrayal as initial converts in the American Board, his sugar milling business, and his plans to farm on a large scale. Nembula's steps towards buying a large tract of land left an impression in the procedures government followed around black land ownership; and may also have contributed to the formulation of colonial laws around black land ownership and exemption from “native law”. Nembula's story in many ways exemplifies the amakholwa experience of what Norman Etherington has called “economic experimentation” and the frustration of that vision.

Another Nation: Aboriginal Activism in the Late 1960s and Early 1970s

The late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed the emergence of Aboriginal nationalism and an associated decline of activist interest in securing Aboriginal inclusion in the Australian nation. This article positions these changes in the context of disillusionment following the 1967 referendum, the advent of black power and land rights, the radicalisation of youth and the rise of identity politics. It argues that the Aboriginal nationalism of this period was a predominantly cultural nationalism that sought to transcend the colonial subordination of Aborigines through a rejuvenation of Aboriginality.

Rural education finance and achievement among southern black belt school districts

The state of Tennessee is part of the United States that houses a special set of school districts known as the Black Belt. Named for the black fertile land, utilized for the agricultural industry for hundreds of years in the south, these school districts have the lowest levels of achievement among the one hundred and thirty six school districts in Tennessee. The purpose of this study is to identify just how extensive these achievement discrepancies are between Black Belt school students and non-Black Belt school students by answering the following research question: are Black Belt school students disproportionately scoring lower on college admittance exams (ACT) than students in non-Black Belt school districts? The data for this study was gathered from the Tennessee Report Card for Education over a period of ten years. Pooled time series cross-sectional regression analysis was the datatesting device employed in the study. The findings suggest that Black Belt students are disproportionately scoring lower on college admittance exams compared to non-Black Belt students. Policymakers need to use caution when generalizing this study because it only represents those Black Belt school districts in Tennessee.

Cultivating Voters: The Social Relations of Agriculture and Racial Politics in the New South

The twentieth-century Southern racial political order is conventionally seen as a product of tenant farming and economic stagnation. This article argues that class and racial struggles in agriculture had a variety of effects, some enhancing white political advantage while others undermined it, and that these effects differed depending on the racial composition of county populations. These results shed new light on the politics of black land loss and the trajectory of southern political development.

Aboriginal Contemporary Music as Australian Cultural Heritage: The Black Image Band's CD, Beautiful Land and Sea

The interplay of contemporary music and cultural heritage is of particular salience to Indigenous peoples in Australia. It is not only a major site for artistic expression but also helps embody social memory. This article explores a CD, Beautiful Land and Sea, by the Black Image Band from Aboriginal communities on Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, and argues that it is a tangible artifact of cultural heritage. The analysis draws upon Martin's framework of an identity narrative to show how the songs weave notions of the past, space, and culture into their musical expressions of “caring for country,” a key aspect of Indigenous Australian cultural heritage.

Differential Vulnerabilities: Environmental and Economic Inequality and Government Response to Unnatural Disasters

Robert D. Bullard Differential Vulnerabilities: Environmental and Economic Inequality and Government Response to Unnatural Disasters ON AUGUST 29, 2005, HURRICANE KATRINA MADE LANDFALL NEAR New O rleans, leaving death and destruction across the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama Gulf coast counties.* Katrina was the m ost destructive hurricane in US histoiy, costing over $70 billion in insured damage. Katrina was also one of the deadliest storms in decades, w ith a death toll of 1,836, and still counting. Katrina’s death toll is surpassed only by the 1928 hurricane in Florida (estimates vary from 2,500 to 3,000 deaths) and the 8,000 w ho perished in the 1900 Galveston hurri­ cane (Kleinberg, 2003; Pastor et al„ 2006). After some two and a h alf years, reconstruction continues to move at a slow pace in New Orleans and the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama Gulf coast region. The lethargic recoveiy is now begin­ ning to overshadow the deadly storm itself (Kromm and Sturgis, 2007). Questions linger: W hat w ent wrong? Can it happen again? Is govern­ m ent equipped to plan for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from natu­ ral and man-made disasters? Can the public trust government response to be fair? Does race m atter w hen it comes to disaster relief? social research Vol 75 : No 3 : Fall 2008 753 W HY FOCUS ON THE SOUTH? This paper uses the events th at unfolded in New Orleans, the Gulf coast region, and the southern United States as the sociohistorical backdrop for examining social vulnerability and governm ent response to unnatu­ ral disasters. The case studies of disparate treatm ent date back m ore than eight decades. The South is unique because of the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and entrenched w hite supremacy. The region has a history of black business ownership, black hom e ownership, and black land ownership. Most black farmers are located in the South. It is no accident that the South gave birth to the m odem civil rights move­ m ent and the environm ental justice movement. And the vast m ajority (over 95 percent) of the 105 historically black colleges and universities are located in the South. The 2000 census show ed th at African Am ericans ended the century by returning “hom e” to the South—the same region they spent m ost of the century escaping. Since the mid-seventies, reverse m igra­ tion patterns indicate th at m ore blacks are entering the South than leaving for other regions. Today, over 54 percent of the nation’s blacks live in the South (McKinnon, 2000). In the 620 counties that m ake up the southern “blackbelt,” stretching from Delaware to Texas, African Americans comprise a larger percentage of the total population than they do in the country as a whole—about 12 percent. In the 15 southern states (excluding Texas and Florida), blacks make up 22.8 percent of the population, compared w ith 3.5 percent for Hispanics. Transportation serves as a key com ponent in addressing poverty, unem ploym ent, and equal opportunity goals, ensuring access to educa­ tion, health care, and other public services. American society is largely divided between individuals w ith cars and those w ithout cars (Bullard and Johnson, 1997). The private automobile is still the dom inant travel mode of every segm ent of the American population, including the poor and people of color. Nationally, only 7 percent of white households do not own a car, compared w ith 24 percent of African-American households, 17 percent 754 social research of Latino households, and 13 percent of Asian-American households. Cars are an essential part of emergency evacuation plans. Disaster evac­ uation plans across the nation assume that people own a car. Nearly 11 million households in the United States lack vehicles, or more than 28 million Americans who would have difficulty evacuating their area in an emergency. In 1997, to encourage b etter disaster planning, the Federal Emergency M anagem ent Agency (FEMA) launched Project Impact, a pilot program that provided funding for com m unities to assess their vulnerable populations and make arrangem ents to get people w...

“We Didn’t Get Nothing:” The Plight of Black Farmers

The central thesis to this article is that blacks were intended to work the land, but never to own the land. The progression from working the land via slavery, to peonage, and to land ownership is explored. Africans arrived on American soil carrying with them a rich legacy in caring for the land, and while they did so in America, it was under the most onerous of conditions. Once freed, blacks became prodigious land owners, but with the onset of the twentieth century various systemic factors impacted landownership for blacks. These same factors along with mechanization, herbicides, government policy, and the courts all served to undermine farm ownership for black Americans. The Pigford Class Action Suit is central to understanding the complexities of the plight of the black farmer and the attempts of various advocacy groups to maintain black land ownership.

Africana Studies and Economics

The scope and meaning of terms like African American Studies, Black Studies, and Africana Studies have evolved continually since the field was established in schools, colleges, and universities in the late 1960s. Discourse about the economic conditions of people of African descent has always constituted an important dimension of the Black intellectual tradition that Africana Studies seeks to preserve and extend. Significant barriers exist, however, to collaboration between economists and Africana Studies specialists. Opportunities to collaborate across the disciplines arise in addressing issues such as hyper-unemployment, pervasive poverty, environmental racism, Black land loss, and the plight of Black farmers. The author suggests that efforts by Africana Studies specialists to understand many of the current dynamics could be enhanced through collaboration with those economists attempting to develop the subfield of stratification economics.

South African pension fund conversions: Dealing with environmental change

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse South African pension fund conversions from defined benefit to defined contribution structures and to develop a model for dealing with environmental change. Design/Methodology/Approach: Qualitative research methodology was used. Industry experts were interviewed to obtain a macro view of the phenomenon and specific manifestations of the phenomenon were also considered in case studies.Feedback from semi-structured interviews was categorised into several emergent themes. Within-case and cross-case analyses were conducted. Findings: Results indicated that an environmental shock exerted a substantial influence on the course of events. Under these: Various factors combined to drive organisational evolution (i.e. adaptation to the environment). Adaptation speed was inappropriate and exceeded that which was required for sufficient thought. Uncertainty and vacuum circumstances arose leading to consequences that require redress. The relative power of the stakeholders changed and influenced the strategic outcome. An imbalance in stakeholder interests arose and ethical factors became consequential. Business acted to restore certainty for itself.Implications: This paper provides insight into organisational behaviour during periods of environmental shock. Environmental shock can be defined as "a condition that arises where business or societal rules are inadequate, or do not exist, to deal with unfolding events". An environmental shock has greater magnitude than a competitive shock, and can include several competitive shocks.Originality/Value: Analysis of pension fund conversions revealed organisational behaviour during periods of environmental shock and the emerging model can be applied in other instances of environmental shock, such as broad-based black economic empowerment (B-B BEE), land redistribution, sanctions and constitutional development.

A Texas Peasantry? Black Smallholders in the Texas Sugar Bowl, 1865–1890

This article examines a small community of former slaves in Texas's leading sugar-producing county and argues that local conditions fostered the growth of a Caribbean-style ‘reconstituted peasantry’. Using local sources to compile a database of 79 African American landowners, it traces the postwar decline of the sugar plantations, the process of black land acquisition and the smallholders' strategies for survival. The smallholders' position, however, was precarious, and most lost their lands at the close of the nineteenth century. The piece concludes by suggesting that more intensive local research into former-slave communities may force a reconsideration of the notion that all American slaves became landless wage labourers.

'Rudely Interrupted': Shakespeare and Terrorism

<section class="abstract"> On Saturday 19 March, 2005, Omar Ahmed Abdullah Ali tidied his workstation at Qatar Petroleum and shut down his computer for the last time. There were very few people in the offi ce that day, and none of them noticed anything unusual about his behaviour. They recalled him afterwards as ‘a decent man’, a family man whose wife had, only a month before, given birth to their third child. Earlier that morning the 38-year old Egyptian computer programmer had said goodbye to Umm Abdullah and his three children quite normally, as if nothing unusual were about to occur. I am not what I am. Now he left the offi ce quietly, unassumingly, attracting no attention, and went to collect his black Land Cruiser from the company car park. Driving slowly and carefully, he pulled the car onto the road and headed towards the Doha suburb of Fariq Kalaib. </section>

Reproduction of the Black Land Crab, Gecarcinus Ruricola, in the San Andres Archipelago, Western Caribbean

Abstract Reproductive biology of the black land crab, Gecarcinus ruricola (Linnaeus, 1758), has been studied in the San Andres Archipelago in the Western Caribbean, on the islands of San Andres and Old Providence. Both sexes become mature at about 50 mm maximum carapace width, and very few specimens below this size take part in the annual breeding migration. In females the ovaries mature progressively from January to April, and laying occurs from May to July. There is no evidence that individual females lay more that once in a year. The breeding migrations were monitored in 2003 and 2004 by recording specimens crossing the coast road (running 50-100 m from the upper shore). On both San Andres and Old Providence migration was limited to specific stretches of the western shores. On both islands migration occurred from late April to July, intensity varying with time. Migration peaks were not consistent between islands or years, and could not be clearly linked to environmental factors. Migrating crabs were mo...

The "Long Movement" as Vampire: Temporal and Spatial Fallacies in Recent Black Freedom Studies

Previous articleNext article No AccessSymposium on African American HistoriographyThe "Long Movement" as Vampire: Temporal and Spatial Fallacies in Recent Black Freedom StudiesSundiata Keita Cha-Jua and Clarence LangSundiata Keita Cha-Jua Search for more articles by this author and Clarence Lang Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of African American History Volume 92, Number 2Spring 2007 A journal of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/JAAHv92n2p265 Views: 1346Total views on this site Citations: 8Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright ASALHPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Ashley Howard Whose Streets? Wielding Urban Revolts as Political Tools, The Journal of African American History 107, no.22 (May 2022): 238–265.https://doi.org/10.1086/719000Danielle Wiggins “Save Auburn Avenue for Our Black Heritage”: Debating Development in Post–Civil Rights Atlanta, The Journal of African American History 107, no.11 (Mar 2022): 79–104.https://doi.org/10.1086/717346Mary Frances Berry On the Editorship of The Journal of African American History, The Journal of African American History 102, no.33 (Mar 2018): 301–306.https://doi.org/10.5323/jafriamerhist.102.3.0301 Alec Fazackerley Hickmott Black Land, Black Capital: Rural Development in the Shadows of the Sunbelt South, 1969–1976, The Journal of African American History 101, no.44 (Nov 2017): 504–534.https://doi.org/10.5323/jafriamerhist.101.4.0504 Larry O. Rivers The Morehouse College Scholar-Activist Pedagogy and Boston Personalism, The Journal of African American History 101, no.44 (Nov 2017): 535–546.https://doi.org/10.5323/jafriamerhist.101.4.0535 Jonathan B. Fenderson "When the Revolution Comes": New Perspectives on Black Student Activism and the Black Studies Movement, The Journal of African American History 98, no.44 (Nov 2017): 607–622.https://doi.org/10.5323/jafriamerhist.98.4.0607 Philip F. Rubio "Who Divided the Church?": African American Postal Workers Fight Segregation in the Postal Unions, 1939-1962, The Journal of African American History 94, no.22 (Nov 2017): 172–199.https://doi.org/10.1086/JAAHv94n2p172 V. P. Franklin Jackanapes: Reflections on the Legacy of the Black Panther Party for the Hip Hop Generation, The Journal of African American History 92, no.44 (Nov 2017): 553–560.https://doi.org/10.1086/JAAHv92n4p553

The development of management options for the black land crab ( Gecarcinus ruricola) catchery in the San Andres Archipelago, Colombia

Black land crab ( Gecarcinus ruricola) populations and their dependent catchery in the San Andres Archipelago, Colombia, are under threat from overexploitation, habitat loss and degradation, and road-kill during annual spawning migrations to the sea. This article discusses the participatory approach used to define management of the species and describes the extensive involvement of local communities, particularly catchers and processors, in research and assessment of management options. Many options were considered. General support exists for continued use of closed areas and seasons in species management, in combination with the introduction of a new minimum size limit of 70 mm carapace width. Licensing receives some support, but the use of total allowable catches or quotas is universally rejected. Establishing a legally defined community-driven body, known as the Black Crab Conservation Unit, is seen as a crucial step in the management of the resource and has widespread support.

Population Biology of the Black Land Crab, Gecarcinus Ruricola, in the San Andres Archipelago, Western Caribbean

Abstract The population biology of the black land crab, Gecarcinus ruricola (Linnaeus, 1758), was studied in the San Andres Archipelago in the western Caribbean. Investigations were conducted on the islands of San Andres (SA), and Old Providence/Santa Catalina (OP). On both islands the mean size differed little between the sexes, but males reached a larger maximum size by ∼5 mm CW. Crabs of both sexes reached greater mean and maximum sizes on OP than on SA (by ∼10 mm CW): this is tentatively attributed to the higher human population and heavier crab exploitation on the latter. The density of crabs was higher on OP than on SA. In natural ‘forest’ habitats it averaged 2174 crabs Ha−1 in the former, and 804 crabs Ha−1 in the latter. On both islands the densities were higher in watersheds adjacent to the coastlines where breeding females migrate to the sea, and to which returning larvae recruit. The total population estimates were about 3 million crabs on OP, and 800,000 on SA. The lower density and populatio...

Village governance in North China: 1875-1936

Table of Contents for Village Governance in North China, 1875-1936 List of Maps and Tables Preface 1. Introduction Part 1.A Local Practices 2. The Setting 3. Cooperation and Control in the Peasant Community 4. Rules, Self-Interest, and Strategies 5. Tax Collection 6. and Tax Administration Part 2.A New Changes after 1900 7. Power, Discourse, and Legitimacy 8. Cooperation and Conflict over Village Schools 9. Elite Activism 10. Village Reorganization 11. Uncovering Black Land 12. Conclusion Notes Character List References Index

Trusteeship and Black Land Ownership in the Transvaal During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Trusteeship and Black Land Ownership in the Transvaal During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land: An Environmental History of Africa, 1800–1990. By James C. McCann. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1999. Pp. iii, 224. $24.95.

James McCann is the author of one of the most important agricultural and environmental histories of an African region (People of the Plow: An Agricultural History of Ethiopia, 1800–1990. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995). As such he is well placed to attempt a modern environmental history of the African continent. Overall, he has been successful. Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land is an extremely useful survey of recent trends in research into the causes and consequences of environmental change in Africa. As an introduction to the subject, McCann's book is probably unrivaled.