The Great Land Robbery:The shameful story of how 1 million black families have been ripped from their farms
Story by Vann R. Newkirk II
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Images above: A sign on a utility pole to deter hunters, near the old Scott-family homestead, Drew, Mississippi; Willena's brother Isaac Daniel Scott Sr. amid soybeans in Mound Bayou.
Updated on September 29, 2019. Reposted on June 19, 2020
I. Wiped Out
“you ever chop before?” Willena Scott-White was testing me. I sat with her in the cab of a Chevy Silverado pickup truck, swatting at the squadrons of giant, fluttering mosquitoes that had invaded the interior the last time she opened a window. I was spending the day with her family as they worked their fields just outside Ruleville, in Mississippi’s Leflore County. With her weathered brown hands, Scott-White gave me a pork sandwich wrapped in a grease-stained paper towel. I slapped my leg. Mosquitoes can bite through denim, it turns out."
The Great Land Robbery:The shameful story of how 1 million black families have been ripped from their farms