Symposium held on black agriculture

As part of its Open House Week, the African-American Studies department at the Capstone held a symposium on African-American attitudes toward agriculture Tuesday.

The symposium began with a screening of the film "Homecoming," which shows the struggles blacks have endured to get and keep land of their own.

"A lot of things I saw in the film, I didn't know whether to cry or say bad words," said Andrew Williams, who spoke at the symposium. Williams has worked for the United States Department of Agriculture for 35 years.

After "Homecoming," Kimberly Ruffin, a professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago, gave a talk titled "Digging in the Dirt: Agriculture and African-American Environmental Perspectives."

"['Homecoming'] provides a window into African-American environmental perspectives," she said. "The film makes a good case that revitalizing African-American involvement in farming is very important."

Ruffin said the "inconvenient history" of slavery in the United States has led many blacks to abandon the land, and for many to assume "black people don't care about the environment."

The latter, she said, is not true.

"The human system of slavery did not obliterate African-American connections to the land," she said. "African-Americans' connection to land superseded the oppressive circumstances of slavery."

However, in some instances, "agricultural work was cloaked in shame" for freed slaves, and many believed there was no dignity in it, she said.

"They knew both the burden and beauty of being natural," she said.

DoVeanna Fulton, the director of the department of African-American studies, said blacks have historically been ignored in the area of agriculture and the environment, though they have a long history with the land and ecology.

"The history, present and future of African-American agriculture is so alive in Alabama," Ruffin said.

Ruffin said segregation and unfair sharecropping practices in the 20th century drove many would-be black agriculturists up north to factory jobs, and that population is unlikely to return to farming.

"We need to ask ourselves to what degree do we have a system that allows one to flourish, and not just survive, as a farmer," she said.

In his speech, Williams spoke of his work to alter the system to provide more funding to small farmers, which he said is sorely lacking.

The number of black farmers in the United States ranges from 2,500 to 4,000, depending on the definition of a farm, Williams said. The number has dropped from one million in 1910.

"All wealth, regardless of how you classify it, comes from the land," he said. "On the farm, it was hard work, and it was dirty work. Long hours. Very low pay. A lot of people left the farm, abandoned the land."

Marquita Henderson, a junior majoring in business, said she enjoyed the symposium.

"I learned a lot," she said. "I didn't know much about agriculture."