Black Appalachian Landowners – I Am Appalachia

By Black Appalachian Coalition

This content was originally published by Black Appalachian Coalition.

Core Truth: Black land loss in Appalachia was not accidental, cultural, or inevitable—it was produced by racist policy, law, and practice. Black landownership in Appalachia existed—and was deliberately dismantled.

Black farmers and landowners were present across Appalachia for generations. They acquired land through purchase, inheritance, and community networks—often under hostile conditions—and used it to build farms, businesses, churches, schools, and mutual aid systems. Their presence was not marginal. It was foundational.

The myth that Appalachia lacked Black farmers helps obscure a deeper truth: Black poverty in the region is not cultural or accidental—it is structural. Discriminatory lending, heirs’ property laws, racially biased taxation, exclusion from USDA programs, violence, fraud, and legal manipulation all worked together to strip Black families of land and security.

This land loss was not the result of poor decisions or neglect. It was the outcome of racist U.S. policies and practices that rewarded dispossession and punished Black ownership.

What followed was erasure: of ownership, of contribution, and of responsibility. Naming this history is not about nostalgia—it is about accountability, repair, and refusing the lie that Black Appalachians simply disappeared.

Visit Black Appalachian Coalition here.