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Object Description
Interview no. | U-0655 |
Restrictions | No restrictions. Open to research. |
Project | U.19. Long Civil Rights Movement: Breaking New Ground |
Project description | Interviews, 2011-2012, conducted for the Breaking New Ground: A History of American Farm Owners Since the Civil War project. This project was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and was coordinated by Adrienne Petty (of the City College of New York) and Mark Schultz (of Lewis University in Illinois) with assistance from Jacquelyn Hall. Interviews were conducted by two cohorts of research fellows and centered on African American farmers', landowners', and descendants' political, social, and economic experiences in the American South from the Civil War onward. |
Date | 23 June 2011 |
Interviewee | Anderson, Henry, 1955- |
Interviewee occupation | Farmers |
Interviewee DOB | 1955 |
Interviewee ethnicity | African Americans |
Interviewer | Ferguson, Robert Hunt. |
Abstract | Overall, this interview discussed Mr. Anderson's transition from a row crop farmer to a cattle farmer. He discussed how difficult it was for farmers in the "hill country" (Lexington, Miss., is about 15 miles east of the Delta and is literally hilly). Anderson felt that he was denied loans for farming equipment and land because the government was trying to put hill country farmers out of business in favor of delta farmers. He was also a plaintiff in the Pigford case and receive a settlement, though he agreed that the payment was a drop in the bucket compared to what they had lost over the years. He said that he had been discriminated against by the United States Department of Agriculture and that his father had been as well. His father had been directed by the United States Department of Agriculture to go to a bank for a loan, but the bank refused. He also said that he and his father often ran afoul of the white gin owners who were not fair in their dealings with black cotton farmers. Anderson said the discrimination was one big reason his father quit farming in the early 1970s and why he (Henry Anderson) turned to cattle farming. |
Citation | Interview with Henry Anderson by Robert H. Ferguson, 23 June 2011 U-0655, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Description
Interview no. | U0655_Audio |