GCSU’s Rural Studies Institute executive director lends expertise to CBS documentary on Black farmers

Dr. Veronica Womack, executive director of Georgia College & State University’s Rural Studies Institute, was recently interviewed by CBS Reports and predominantly features in its new documentary “40 Acres and a Mule.”

The piece aired Thursday, June 22, at 8 and 11 p.m. and is available for viewing at cbsnews.com/land.

Womack, a noted scholar of the rural South, was highlighted in the CBS piece that explores the ways Black Americans are reconnecting to their agrarian traditions, as well as developing ways to produce generational wealth through agriculture, land acquisition and ownership. 

While America was residence to a small number of free Black people, most were held in chattel slavery, a system that began while America was a British colony and continued until 1865. Immediately after Emancipation, Black leaders voiced a desire for land and on January 16, 1865, General Sherman signed Field Order 15. It reserved 400,000 confiscated acres of land for newly emancipated Blacks near the Southeast coastal areas of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

The goal was to provide 40 acres of land, and in some cases, a U.S. Army mule. This plan became known as “40 acres and a mule.” But the promise was short-lived and rescinded, as President Andrew Johnson revoked Field Order 15 and returned the confiscated land to its owners, immediately after taking office due to President Lincoln’s assassination in April of 1865.

CBS reporter Skyler Henry—who formerly worked for 41NBC in Macon as multi-skilled journalist—interviewed Womack in May for the documentary. She’s quoted as saying “Land has always been about freedom—political freedom, physical freedom, economic freedom.”

Henry asks, “So, land is power?” Womack responds, “Most definitely.”

The documentary explores Black agrarian traditions, the “Pigford” decisions—resulting from a class action lawsuit against USDA by Black farmers that affirmed discriminatory practices in loans and assistance by the agency from 1981 to 1996—as well as a history of violence and de facto and de jure discriminatory practices against Black farmers and landowners that resulted in a reported 326 billion dollars of lost Black American acreage.

The documentary also features prominent scholars like Georgia Historical Society President Todd Groce, and Professor and MacArthur Fellow Thomas Mitchell of Boston College.