Comment by pessimizer
2 days ago
When you get to the end, remember that's how many to most black people lived until very recently until they were expelled from the land with nothing, due to the rise of more efficient farming techniques. The very few who owned their own land were more slowly pushed out when they were denied farm loans. Black people owned about 15 million acres of land in 1910, now they own about 1 million.
The idea that "efficiency" alone caused it glosses over how policy and power structures actively shaped who got to benefit from modern agriculture and who got left out (or pushed out).
how much have land ownership shrunk per person, for all americans, since 1910? i wouldn't be surprised if it was similar. which isn't to, in any way, discount the especially terrible treatment people of color have had in american history.
Until the industrial revolution, 80% of people worked the land.