The Rural Midwest Since World War II

8. “The Whitest of Occupations”?-African Americans in the Rural Midwest, 1940–2010

F ew African Americans called the rural Midwest home prior to World War II, and fewer still lived in the region after 1945, yet African Americans farmed in every midwestern state and lived in several persistent rural enclaves in Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, and Ohio. Certainly the number could not compare to the concentrated populations of African Americans in the rural South or in the industrial North. Less than 159,000 African Americans, or 1.2 percent of the entire black population in the nation, lived in the rural Midwest by 1940. At the same time, only 7,466 or 1.1 percent of all black farmers in the nation tilled midwestern soil. These numbers indicate the extreme minority situation of blacks in the region. Studies of rural midwestern black life tend to concentrate on antebellum community building or post–World War I community decline rather than post–World War II survival. The few studies that document experiences between 1940 and the present indicate that race relations between residents of rural black communities and the majority white world depended on attitudes of residents and evolved in tandem with generational transition. As one scholar noted, “while on the surface it would appear that [the black residents] were not barred from participating in the American Dream…it is certain that their very real accomplishments were due primarily to individual tenacity and to the continued presence of several black mutual support kinship networks, rather than to any inherent openness in the…class structure.” EIGHT—“The Whitest of Occupations”? African Americans in the Rural Midwest, 1940–2010 Debra A. Reid “The Whitest of Occupations”? 205 The choices that rural black midwesterners made after World War II can teach powerful lessons about race relations, rural and farm modernization, and the enduring lure of the land.1 Racism tempered social and economic relationships between African Americans and the white majority population in the rural Midwest even as both forged mutually dependent relationships to survive. Rural residents had to be aware of subtle individualized expressions of white supremacy and also had to negotiate places where racially restrictive ordinances prevented them from sharing space or status, property or markets. Different contexts resulted in different encounters; residents of open country settlements and biracial communities attended schools with their white neighbors, while residents of separatist communities sought control over their own social and cultural outlets, including schools. Rural Kansans contributed to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, an indication of rural commitment to civil rights. The strategies black farmers adopted likewise indicated intolerance for the status quo despite the risks of change. Minority farmers specialized much as their white neighbors did, that is, they operated dairy farms in urban milk sheds and raised corn and hogs, beef cattle and soybeans. For these farmers, production agriculture represented the model for success. But sometimes lenders refused to extend credit, neighbors refused to sell land, and both de facto and de jure segregation constrained personal liberty. That said, one-half of all black farmers owned their farms by World War II. While ownership did not protect them from injustice, it provided some security. Some entered niche markets, such as growing vegetables, tending orchards, or raising goats for consumption by Black Muslims. Some minority youth joined their white peers in the out-migration from the country to college and off-farm jobs, but others participated in a back-to-the-country movement that accelerated as the growing middle class retired and veterans returned from war and looked for alternatives to city life. Investors bought land for hobby farms near historically black communities or purchased retreats near recreation areas that catered to a black clientele. This kind of rural development sometimes worried established residents, white and black alike, given their trepidation about newcomers. Sometimes the communities devolved into dens of iniquity through no fault of the residents. In general, however, African Americans engaged in quintessential American pursuits in the countryside: they sought happiness via their rural retreats, property and profit through their investment in production agriculture, isolation from troubles they associated with urban life, and full citizenship as the civil rights movement matured. 206 Debra A. Reid Race and Rural Life During the 1950s Wallaces’ Farmer and Iowa Homestead commented on “the kind of segregation” practiced in the North, which prevented blacks from living where they wanted to, working at their chosen trade, or getting service in the...