Freedom Farm Cooperative facts for kids

The Freedom Farm Cooperative was a special farm project in Sunflower County, Mississippi. It was started in 1967 by Fannie Lou Hamer, a brave American civil rights activist. The farm was created to help Black families in the countryside. It aimed to improve their lives by providing food, like vegetables and pigs, and by offering community support, such as building homes and helping with education.

The cooperative helped Black families become independent. It gave them food and financial help that the U.S. government often did not provide to Black communities. This support allowed families to feed themselves and have safe homes. With these basic needs met, people could more easily take part in politics and speak up for their rights. The Freedom Farm Cooperative is an important example for today's movements that work for food security and food justice.

Why the Farm Was Needed

During a time called the Jim Crow era, many laws and policies treated Black people unfairly. The United States Department of Agriculture had rules that made it hard for Black farmers to get loans and help that White farmers received. This caused many Black farm owners to lose their land. They also found it difficult to buy new land.

In the Mississippi Delta, where Fannie Lou Hamer lived, Black farmers lost about 12 million acres of land. A large part of this loss happened between 1950 and 1964, just before Hamer started her farm. Because of these unfair policies, many Black people had to become sharecroppers. This meant they worked on someone else's land and gave a large part of their crops to the landowner. Others had to take low-paying farm jobs or move north to find work.

Under sharecropping, Black farmers were still controlled by White landowners. They faced ongoing unfair treatment and could not freely use their political rights. Black farm workers were often kicked off their land or fired if they tried to register to vote.

Freedom Farm Cooperative founder Fannie Lou Hamer in 1964

Fannie Lou Hamer was born in Mississippi in 1917. She grew up seeing these difficult conditions. She was the youngest of 20 children in a sharecropping family. At age six, she started picking cotton in the fields with her family. She went to school until she was 12, then she left to work full-time. After she got married in 1944, she and her husband worked on a Mississippi plantation.

In 1962, Hamer joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She took part in an effort to help people register to vote. She and her husband later moved to Ruleville, Mississippi, with very little money. Hamer continued to organize and made big steps in politics. Her powerful speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention helped lead to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Even with her national civil rights work, Hamer saw a big need to help her own community. Sunflower County, where 67% of the people were Black, struggled with not having enough food. It also had very high rates of poor nutrition and health problems. The state of Mississippi actually made these conditions worse on purpose. While some federal lawmakers wanted to help, a Mississippi congressman stopped efforts to assist the mostly Black community.

Hamer believed that Black people needed to be economically independent. She saw this as a way to gain political power and resist unfair treatment. For Black people to truly be free and have their rights, they needed to be able to rely on themselves.

Starting and Growing the Farm

Fannie Lou Hamer started planning the Freedom Farm Cooperative as a way to fight poverty and empower Black families. She founded the farm in 1967 on 40 acres of land. Hamer had connections with national non-profit groups and wealthy activists, like Measure for Measure and Harry Belafonte. These connections helped get the money needed to start the farm.

The main goals of the Freedom Farm Cooperative (FFC) were three-fold:

• To improve nutrition for the Black community in the Delta.
• To provide affordable housing.
• To create opportunities for people to start their own businesses.

The cooperative grew a lot in 1972 when it bought 600 more acres of land. They used this extra land to grow crops they could sell. This included 300 acres of cotton, 200 acres of soybeans, 80 acres of wheat, and 10 acres of cucumbers. They also raised cattle and catfish. Selling these crops helped pay for the food programs and community support, as well as the mortgage on the land.

Providing Food for Families

The farm fed over 1,500 families. It had a large vegetable garden and a pig bank.

Within two years, the vegetable fields produced thousands of pounds of vegetables. These included collard greens, kale, turnips, peas, corn, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes. Growing food was especially important for Black women. They had always played a key role in food production.

The pig bank started in 1967 with a donation of 55 pigs. After three years, it had grown to 2,000 pigs. Women helped build the fences and pens for the pigs. Families could borrow pigs and then harvest them after they had piglets. The pig farm also got help from an international group called Heifer International, which provided advice on animal care. Hamer felt that owning a pig was a way to prevent starvation.

The farm was meant to help anyone who needed it. The cooperative asked for a $1 monthly membership fee, but it was not required. Only about 30 families could afford to pay it. Instead, families could trade work hours for a bushel of the farm's produce. About 10% of the food was given to families who could not participate at all. While the main focus was the Black community in Sunflower County, White families in need were also helped. Extra produce was even sent to Black communities in Chicago.

The food programs helped with the high food insecurity in Sunflower County. They allowed Black families to be independent and self-reliant. The FFC challenged the unfair power structures of the time. It freed Black farmers from the harsh conditions of sharecropping. With Black leaders making their own decisions and growing their own food, simply surviving became a form of resistance. Fannie Lou Hamer said, "Down where we are, food is used as a political weapon. But if you have a pig in your backyard, if you have some vegetables in your garden, you can feed yourself and your family, and nobody can push you around." The help from the farm meant that Black farmers no longer had to risk going hungry just to vote.

Community Support and Education

The Freedom Farm Cooperative offered many types of community support. This included affordable housing, education, job opportunities, and general help.

Most Black people in Sunflower County lived in homes that were falling apart. To help with the great need for safe homes, the FFC created the Delta Housing Development Corporation. This project built 92 homes. These homes had electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing. Many homes in the Delta did not have these basic things before. Some of these homes are still standing in Ruleville today. The cooperative also used money from selling crops to help people buy new homes. Having secure housing also helped people gain political freedom. White property owners would often evict their Black tenants if they registered to vote. In 1969, over 100 Black sharecropping families were evicted from their homes. So, having their own homes allowed Black families to be politically active without immediate punishment.

The cooperative also provided education for both children and adults. The state of Mississippi did not invest much in Black schools. The FFC had a Head Start preschool program. It also helped 25 students go to college and vocational schools. They offered job training in construction, food preservation, and sewing.

The cooperative also created direct job opportunities. These included positions like secretary, bookkeeper, farm manager, and farm laborer. The farm also hired young people for summer jobs. A sewing cooperative made and sold clothes. Childcare was provided on-site for employees.

The FFC offered general help to community members who needed it. The cooperative provided clothing, food, and school supplies to families. The "Out Right" grant gave money to families to help them buy food stamps and medicine. The cooperative also offered temporary housing to families after disasters. It also gave loans to new Black businesses in the county.

Importantly, the cooperative also taught civil rights classes and voter education. It helped people register to vote and supported activist efforts. The cooperative helped in two ways: it indirectly helped Black people by freeing them from hunger and unfair treatment so they could be politically active. It also directly supported voter registration and protests.

Closing and Lasting Impact

The Freedom Farm Cooperative closed in 1976 due to several reasons. There were floods, droughts, and tornadoes in 1972 and 1973. These natural disasters made it hard to grow crops to sell. So, the cooperative could not fund its social programs and pay its taxes at the same time. Unlike farms owned by White people, the FFC did not get any financial help from the state government. Instead, problems with local governments made it harder for the cooperative to succeed.

There were also disagreements with donors and a general economic slowdown. This caused funders to stop their support. Fannie Lou Hamer was very important in running the cooperative and getting national funding. However, her health was declining, and she could not travel as much. This meant the cooperative lacked strong leadership. The FFC closed in 1976. Fannie Lou Hamer passed away the next year at age 59.

Even though the Freedom Farm Cooperative lasted less than ten years, its impact is still felt today. Food expert Monica White calls the project an example of "collective agency and community resilience." This means the Black community worked together to defend their rights to healthy food, safe homes, clean water, good education, healthcare, and jobs. Growing food and taking care of the land became a way to explore racial justice, economic empowerment, and community strength.

This effort laid the groundwork for modern Black community farming projects in both rural and city areas. Examples of today's Black food justice efforts include the Freedom Farmer's market in Oakland, California, the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (D-Town), and St. Louis’ Rustic Roots Sanctuary. Fannie Lou Hamer once said, "Give us food and it will be gone tomorrow. Give us land and the tools to work it and we will feed ourselves forever."