After a year-long legal battle with a railroad company over their land, landowners in a rural, majority-Black town in Georgia may be forced to sell their homes. In an initial decision on Monday, a Georgia Public Service Commission officer approved a proposed rail spur in Sparta. Several property owners had refused to sell the land […]
Rural Issues
Posted inCulture, History, Rural Issues
The Fight to Protect One of America’s Last Historic Black Communities
ROYAL, Florida — The calmness of the wind reverberated across the burial ground as Beverly Steele motioned to her mother’s grave in Oak Hill Cemetery. Three months ago, they buried her here, just 12 days shy of her 102nd birthday. It’s not uncommon for residents in the majority-Black, unincorporated community of Royal, Florida, to live […]
Posted inCulture, History, Rural Issues
A Florida Community Faces Erasure. Residents Are Honoring Its History.
If you ask any native, they all know the history of Royal, Florida, mostly because they are living descendants of it. As 67-year-old minister Janice Rivers put it: “There was not one corner that you could go to where the individuals didn’t know each other’s names or their history. You could talk to the elders […]
Posted inEminent Domain, Rural Issues
A Year After Attempted Land Grab, Hilton Head Elder’s Case Is Settled
Until her last breath, 94-year-old Josephine Wright fought tirelessly to protect her family’s land from developers. Two months after her passing, the battle is over. The lawsuit filed against Wright has reached a settlement, according to a report from South Carolina Public Radio. Altimese Nichole, a family spokesperson, said the settlement requires developer Bailey Point […]
Posted inHousing, Rural Issues
Rural America Has an Eviction Crisis, Too
Black rural Americans are still feeling the strain of the failed promises of the Reconstruction era and discrimination in lending, as redlining has pushed them away from homeownership into tenancy. A new report illuminates the struggle: Southern Black counties have higher eviction filing rates than their white counterparts. In four states — Georgia, Mississippi, North […]
Posted inRural Issues
What Solutions Exist to Eradicate the Digital Divide?
Capital B’s “Disconnected: Rural Black America and the Digital Divide” project explores the disparate effects of broadband accessibility on Black Americans in the rural South. Check out the first story here. You can read the second story here. The digital divide in the Black rural South has been a problem for decades — but the […]
Posted inBlack Farmers, Rural Issues
Her Family’s Land Was Stolen. Now, She’s Helping Black Farmers Keep Theirs.
During a four-day hearing in late November, Marvin Smith testified that he’s still fighting for his American dream: land ownership. After mostly Black residents refused to sell their property, the Sandersville Railroad Co. filed a petition with the Georgia Public Service Commission to seize the land through eminent domain. The private company wants it for […]
Posted inRural Issues
How Black Rural Americans Navigate Internet Issues
This is the second story in Capital B’s “Disconnected: Rural Black America and the Digital Divide” project, which explores the disparate effects of broadband accessibility on Black Americans in the rural South. This project is made possible by a grant from The Center for Rural Strategies and Grist. You can read our first story, “Digital […]
Posted inRural Issues
Digital Redlining and the Black Rural South
This is the first story in Capital B’s “Disconnected: Rural Black America and the Digital Divide” project, which explores the disparate effects of broadband accessibility on Black Americans in the rural South. This project is made possible by a grant from The Center for Rural Strategies and Grist. Aaron Sankin, investigative reporter for The Markup, […]
Posted inEminent Domain, Rural Issues
Why This Rural Community Is at War With a 130-Year Railroad Company
SPARTA, Ga. — On a muggy and humid afternoon in mid-September, a frustrated Mark Smith stands in the kitchen of the home he and his wife, Janet Smith, built over 30 years ago on the 600 acres his grandfather acquired in 1926. Just a few feet away, the home where Mark grew up still stands. […]