You Can’t Eat Freedom : Southerners and Social Justice After the Civil Rights Movement

Two revolutions roiled the rural South after the mid-1960s: the political revolution wrought by the passage of civil rights legislation, and the ongoing economic revolution brought about by increasing agricultural mechanization. Political empowerment for black southerners coincided with the transformation of southern agriculture and the displacement of thousands of former sharecroppers from the land. Focusing on the plantation regions of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, Greta de Jong analyzes how social justice activists responded to mass unemployment by lobbying political leaders, initiating antipoverty projects, and forming cooperative enterprises that fostered economic and political autonomy, efforts that encountered strong opposition from free market proponents who opposed government action to solve the crisis. Making clear the relationship between the civil rights movement and the War on Poverty, this history of rural organizing shows how responses to labor displacement in the South shaped the experiences of other Americans who were affected by mass layoffs in the late twentieth century, shedding light on a debate that continues to reverberate today. Two revolutions roiled the rural South after the mid-1960s: the political revolution wrought by the passage of civil rights legislation, and the ongoing economic revolution brought about by increasing agricultural mechanization. Political empowerment for black southerners coincided with the transformation of southern agriculture and the displacement of thousands of former sharecroppers from the land. Focusing on the plantation regions of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, Greta de Jong analyzes how social justice activists responded to mass unemployment by lobbying political leaders, initiating antipoverty projects, and forming cooperative enterprises that fostered economic and political autonomy, efforts that encountered strong opposition from free market proponents who opposed government action to solve the crisis. --From jacket flap The Man Don't Need Me Anymore: From Free Labor To Displaced Persons -- This Is Home: Black Workers' Responses To Displacement And Out-migration -- They Could Make Some Decisions: The War On Poverty And Community Action -- Okra Is A Threat: The Low-income Cooperative Movement -- Oeo Is Finished: Federal Withdrawal And The Return To States' Rights -- To Build Something, Where They Are: The Federation Of Southern Cooperatives And Rural Economic Development -- A World Of Despair: Free Enterprise And Its Failures -- Government Cannot Solve Our Problems: Legacies Of Displacement -- Conclusion. Greta De Jong. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 231-285) And Index. Focusing on the plantation regions of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, Greta de Jong analyses how social justice activists responded to mass unemployment by lobbying political leaders, initiating anti-poverty projects, and forming cooperative enterprises that fostered economic and political autonomy, efforts that encountered strong opposition from free market proponents who opposed government action