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"At the very same time that America refused to give the Negro any land, through an act of Congress our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest, which meant it was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor."
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The Homestead Acts passed in 1862, gave away 246 million acres of land. Research shows that 99.73 percent of that land went to whites, including white immigrants. 1.5 million white families were given free land or the equivalent of a minimum of $500,000 per family. Today 93 million whites still live on homestead land, which is at least 40 percent of the white population in America. That land has helped whites accumulate the wealth they have today.
The Homestead Acts began before the end of slavery. This alone should provide evidence of the limited benefit this act had for blacks in America. The Homestead Act provided that a person had to be a citizen to qualify and blacks were not given citizenship until 1866. The overturning of Field Order 15 by President Andrew Johnson also reduced the positive effect such land grants would have provided for blacks
"But not only did they give them land, "they built land grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm. Not only that, they provided county agents to further their expertise in farming. Not only that, they provided low interest rates in order that they could mechanize their farms."
"Not only that, today many of these people are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies not to
farm, and they are the very people telling the black man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And this is what we are faced with, and this is the reality."
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
farm, and they are the very people telling the black man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And this is what we are faced with, and this is the reality."
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
For those who do not understand the reality of how the past extends into today, I present you with the Morrill Act of 1862. Early American society was based on agriculture. By the mid-1800s, the U.S. population was majority rural. So as Dr. King so eloquently described, the government saw the need to provide education and services to assist whites moving west to help them survive on the free land the government provided. Because of that, the United States Congress passed the Morrill Act of 1862, better known as the Land Grant Act. The act gave each state 30,000 acres of land per senator that was to be used to provide education in agriculture, home economics, mechanical arts, or any other profession available during that time in America. They used the grants of land to build colleges, thus Land Grant colleges are one result of the Morrill Act.
Needless to say, blacks were not allowed to attend many Morrill Act institutions. To combat this, the U.S Congress came up with the Agricultural College Act of 1890, (26 Stat. 417, 7 U.S.C. § 321 et seq.) or easier remembered as the Morrill Act of 1890. Signed on August 30, 1890, the Second Morrill Act made it so that black Americans could be admitted into Land Grant Colleges. States having separate colleges for blacks and whites were required to create colleges to train black students in agriculture, mechanical arts, architecture, and other professions of the time just like whites. This law created some of the Americas legendary HBCU’S, but until desegregation became the law, black land grant colleges were not equally funded. These land grants established white economic advancement and as Dr. King said, they established an economic floor for the European immigrants that entered America. At the same time, blacks were freed from slavery, and that economic floor was ripped out from under them thanks to President Andrew Johnson.
Williams, T. (2000). The Homestead Act: A major asset-building policy in American history (CSD Working Paper No. 00-9). St. Louis, MO: Washington University, Center for Social Development. The Homestead Act: A Major Asset-Building Policy in American History
Land-Grant Colleges and Universities
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TOPN: Agricultural College Act of 1890
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