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00:00The heist of the black cowboy was the erasure of black people in general in our relationship to
00:23land. It's this removal and omission of black people's roles and contributions to the cowboy
00:29culture, but it's also the literal theft of land that makes the black cowboy livelihood
00:34almost impossible. There are so many methods that the federal government and individual
00:45white vigilantes have used to force black people off of their land, and there's often
00:50no recourse for the black families who have watched this happen.
00:56Folks have lost over 14 million acres of land in the past century. It is one of the greatest
01:02heists of our time.
01:09We're blowing money fast on this side. Catch up.
01:16I think I'm Big Meech. Larry Hoover. Whippin' Work. Hallelujah. One nation. Underground.
01:18Real getting money from the start. I purchased 280 acres. This one piece of property. I'm
01:25three different counties. You can't do nothing without land. Somebody could go buy that car
01:32you got. They could go buy that Jeep. You got all of that. But if they want this corner.
01:39We've gotta come see the boss.
01:43You gotta come see the boss.
01:48I think you've got music. I think we've got music. Praise God.
01:53They could go buy that car you got,
01:55they could go buy that Jeep you got, all of that.
01:58But if they want this corner,
02:03you gotta come see the boss.
02:10You come out here in the middle of the night,
02:12it'll be a pack of 40 dead,
02:16bouncing.
02:18All you gotta do is just sit back, relax,
02:21watch it all come and go.
02:23On the Promised Land.
02:25Oh brothers, let's go down,
02:28let's go down, come on now.
02:32By my mother being from Mississippi,
02:34or hearing the conversations of, you know,
02:36different people being in the fields,
02:38whether that was picking cotton or somebody being on a horse,
02:42I would always hear that.
02:48When you say cowboy, I don't think of Long Ranger.
02:51I think of some niggas that was out back.
02:54A black man without a saddle on a motherfucking Bronco.
03:00Yeah.
03:03This is as peaceful as it gets.
03:05Land is very important to the cowboy story because it is important to the American story.
03:15The idea, the wealth of America was tending the land and the cattle and black people did that.
03:23For me, at an early age, black cowboys, cowboys, that was just something that I always, that energy I absorbed.
03:33And I believe that's what led me to wanting to own my own.
03:38I would never use the term plantation, because that's not what this is.
03:44But I own acreage.
03:50Like most bad hands dealt to black people, we made the most of it.
03:53Post-emancipation, well, black men had options.
03:57Earning about just as much as white men they could save for their own cattle and their own land.
04:01Right after the Civil War, black people found out that America was about to admit a new state called Oklahoma.
04:13And there was a secret plan across America.
04:16If all of the black people exited to Oklahoma, it would be majority black, and we'd have essentially our own state.
04:27Oklahoma becomes a state where both black and indigenous people are saying,
04:34this is our space to be free and to be free of white people.
04:38This is why there are now so many all-black towns in Oklahoma.
04:48We're in Edmond, Oklahoma, on my property.
04:51Come on.
04:5133 acres.
04:52There they come.
04:53And it's been passed down from my father to me, from me to my kids.
04:56And it's just been our way of life, for me, for 48 years.
05:02To be a black cowboy is...
05:07I guess I would say we've always been here.
05:10It's just something about when you're on the back of the horse,
05:13and you just see that head going up and down, up and down.
05:18It frees your mind.
05:20All the bad things of the day wash away.
05:23You see, that's my time, to be alone with God.
05:32There's so many things I've been able to do that I never would have thought about had I not been spending time with my horse.
05:37Let the devil lay in his eyes.
05:41The cowboy culture is built around honor.
05:43It's built around respect.
05:46You do those two things, as a cowboy, as an American, the world will be just fine.
05:56Get back out there.
05:57It's just been a part of the way we've been raised.
06:00Hey, don't do that.
06:02We've always been here, but it hasn't seen the light that it should have.
06:11The Black Frontier has its own story to tell.
06:14Gunslingers, ranchers, lawmen, and wranglers all providing the blackhand side with an A-1 list of heavy hitters.
06:19Boley was Black Wall Street actually before Tulsa, and it was a stop on the railroad, and it was all black.
06:35They had their own electric company, four water companies, grocery stores, movie theaters.
06:42It was a huge town.
06:46Booker T. Washington said it should be the envy of the world.
06:59It shows what these black towns were trying to do when they exodusted.
07:07They were trying to create, for themselves, the thing that they had created for white people for 300 years.
07:29The exoduster movement becomes this possibility, this promise made, and black people, for years, go for it,
07:36and they are largely successful in creating all black towns.
07:40But then, those black towns become too successful, they become envied, and then they are taken back.
07:47An early citizen like Sam Carson has seen it all change within his lifetime.
07:54His grandchildren, Eddie and Janet, were born here.
07:58They are too young to remember Tulsa as it was,
08:00or to realize the struggle in planning that have gone into making the modern Tulsa a good place for them to grow up in.
08:07The first time we saw the property, I don't know if you ever saw the Wildebeest Great Migration on TV.
08:09The first time we saw the property, I don't know if you ever saw the Wildebeest Great Migration on TV.
08:13Like, right when they coming out the water, and they running up that hill, I was like,
08:19man, this looks like a baby Serengeti here.
08:21I was just in awe.
08:25And I fell in love with the landscape.
08:26And they were like, man, it's just like a baby Serengeti here.
08:28I was like, man, this looks like a baby Serengeti here.
08:29Like, I was just in awe.
08:33great migration on TV.
08:36Like, right when they coming out the water
08:38and they running up that hill, I was like,
08:40man, this looks like a baby Serengeti here.
08:43Like, I was just in awe.
08:46I fell in love with the landscape.
08:52I named our ranch Freedom Acres Ranch
08:55because I want people to come.
08:59I want you to know that you're not judged.
09:01I don't see the color of your skin.
09:03I see a person, you know what I'm saying?
09:06I see a human being.
09:10Upon us first purchasing the property, we go up this road,
09:14and then this white lady comes outside,
09:16and she's like, who are you, and what are you doing?
09:19I was like, ma'am, I'm the new owner of this property.
09:21And then she proceeded to say, well, we shoot dogs.
09:26And I looked at Nicole, and you know,
09:29we kind of gave each other that look is to say, OK,
09:32that's cold word for I shoot niggas.
09:38Did you know the white folks could just take your shit?
09:40And I've always known that.
09:42But it really kicked up a few notches
09:43when I learned about Manifest Destiny in the fifth grade.
09:46The Louisiana Purchase set the West wide open
09:48for new settlement, and here go white people.
09:50Couldn't wait to make some shit up.
09:51There it was in the textbooks.
09:53The belief that a white American should control
09:55a vast section of North America from coast to coast.
09:59The fundamental economic engine of this country
10:03is stolen land.
10:06Every single inch of ground on this continent
10:11was taken and repurposed for the use of European colonizers.
10:17That's the story of America.
10:18If you do something too bad for too long,
10:23then you lose your citizens and you lose your support.
10:25Come on!
10:26And so they have to get citizens on board,
10:28and they have to get the buy-in.
10:30Does anybody know why this stage has a cavalry escort?
10:33To protect us from the Indians.
10:35You may have noticed that we white people
10:37have a way of taking what we want
10:38without regard to what the present owner might think about it.
10:41Some people could call it stealing.
10:43We call it Manifest Destiny.
10:46Just before Andrew Jackson became president,
10:48James Monroe came up with a doctrine
10:50known as Manifest Destiny.
10:52Essentially, it was the idea that God had given
10:56the continent of North America
10:58to Western, Northern European cultures.
11:01The English, the French, the Germans.
11:04They were given this new world to settle,
11:07to civilize, and to fill in.
11:15I'm confused here.
11:17Which God are you talking about?
11:18The creator?
11:19There's gods that don't accept other people.
11:23Is that their God gives them that land?
11:26It was a land that had over 5 million Native Americans
11:32living on it with their own gods.
11:37There's been a whole process of storytelling
11:40that doesn't even begin in the cinema.
11:43It's really folk tales and stories
11:45that were told about life on the frontier.
11:47Those are the narratives that justified Manifest Destiny.
11:52There's an 1872 painting called American Progress,
11:56an angel looking toward the West,
11:59guiding the white people to own and take control
12:04of the land that we now call America.
12:06White men are wranglers of the wild, wild West.
12:11It's full of cacti and wild Indians who need to be reined in.
12:18And all of a sudden, when you see black and indigenous people
12:20on land, you think, where's the white person
12:22who's supposed to help them?
12:23Do they know what to do with this land?
12:25It's this idea that this is a white space,
12:28so we'll let you have a little thing, but you help us.
12:30You can wash our laundry, you can take care of our animals.
12:33But if you try to actually get something and build something,
12:35that's not what God intended.
12:37So we're going to take this and reuse the laws of man to do it.
12:43There's so many really harrowing examples
12:45of black land theft, like the Tulsa Race Massacre.
12:48It was a deadly race riot left out of the history books
12:54and archives of local newspapers,
12:56rarely talked about by whites long-hidden.
12:59White Tulsans descended on the city's thriving black district,
13:03known as Black Wall Street.
13:05White rioters killed hundreds of black residents.
13:09Those are places where we built black economic wealth,
13:12where we owned our property,
13:14and they burned them to the ground.
13:16That's one of the most important things
13:18are more obvious examples,
13:20but there have been so many different ways
13:22and methods and tactics and strategies used.
13:24They've been taking black land for centuries,
13:29and so there's power in that.
13:30If there wasn't power, we wouldn't have a Tulsa.
13:37Two black ranchers in rural El Paso County
13:39say their cries for help and allegations of racism
13:42have been largely ignored by the sheriff's office for years.
13:45Mallory say after reporting these incidents
13:47to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office,
13:49they were the ones who ended up in handcuffs.
13:53Farming while black in America!
13:55Farming while black in America!
13:57My initial dream has been challenged.
14:00America is beautiful for some.
14:03It's not as beautiful for black people.
14:09There are a different set of rules for black landowners
14:13than there are for white landowners.
14:16The good white folk of Colorado
14:18decided they didn't want them there.
14:21They're doing things like killing their sheep,
14:23destroying equipment,
14:24trying to push them off their land.
14:27I've had the police called on me
14:30just for being on my own property
14:32and riding on a certain side of my property.
14:34And you guys were down there just filming your story?
14:37Why?
14:38I mean, we can go on any...
14:39No, no, let me be clear.
14:40We don't call the police
14:42when white people are driving around the roads, right?
14:45When they come and they sat in front of our property today
14:47and they took photographs.
14:49But let's be clear about what's happening here.
14:51It's white people, right?
14:53Because you have to call these things out
14:55for exactly what they are.
14:56White people are weaponizing the police on us
15:00because we're black.
15:05We've got a lot of ground to come to get back there.
15:06Yeah, you're good.
15:07We have to search for one.
15:09All occupants come out of the front door immediately
15:11with nothing in your hands.
15:12Watch your guys' back.
15:14Hey!
15:28Land is everything.
15:30Land is freedom.
15:33Land is food.
15:35Land is power.
15:40The whole fight of the black cowboy,
15:43the black farmer in this country,
15:46is about land ownership.
15:50The black cowboy and the land goes hand in hand,
15:53and when you try to separate him,
15:55only the worst happens.
15:58Over the last century,
15:59America's black farmers have lost more than 90% of their land
16:02because of systemic discrimination and a cycle of debt.
16:05There's really not been a face for black farmers
16:09the way John Boyd has been over the past several years.
16:13I'm founder and president of the National Black Farmers Association,
16:16the baddest black farm organization in the United States.
16:20I need to be able to plant my wheat like everybody else.
16:31I need to be able to plant my corn like everybody else.
16:33Get to check out the mail and give it to them.
16:35He's been at the head of a lot of action against the federal government.
16:38The federal government that's supposed to be getting the land up to black farmers
16:42was helping eliminate black farmers by discrimination in this country.
16:46And someone asked me the other day,
16:49what would you do to preserve your land?
16:52Man, I would die for it.
16:55John Boyd has been fighting one of the most powerful bureaucracies in the nation,
16:59the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
17:01over one of the most valuable entities in our country, land.
17:05At USDA, we are working tirelessly to be a model department
17:11that serves all the people of our great nation.
17:13The USDA is at the core of the land theft
17:17and using the laws to steal land from black cowboys
17:21and black farmers in this country.
17:23I mean, we all named it the last plantation.
17:26During the Civil War, an institution called the Freedmen's Bureau
17:31was created to help formerly enslaved people
17:34assimilate, and it was responsible
17:39for dispensing stolen lands to African Americans
17:45through Special Field Order Number 15
17:48at 40 Acres and a Mule.
17:5040 Acres and a Mule. This is bigger than the music.
17:53When our ancestors were released as slaves,
17:56this country promised them 40 acres of land and a mule to each slave.
18:00It's hard to miss the phenomenon called Spike Lee.
18:0780 acres of tilled land?
18:11That's 2 times 40. That's 2 times 40.
18:13That was the number one goal coming out of slavery.
18:15You wanted to be a landowner.
18:17Just before that, black people were considered property.
18:21I mean, imagine if your granddad was a TV,
18:24and now you own a whole TV company.
18:26That's success.
18:28They had the skills to enrich themselves,
18:32and then they used that money to acquire land.
18:35In 40 years, black people went from owning nothing
18:39to owning 20 million acres of land.
18:45The U.S. government promised newly freed black Americans
18:4840 acres and a mule, but that promise was broken.
18:51When the Freedmen's Bureau program was ended,
18:54their purpose was folded into the USDA.
18:57So the USDA was in charge of that land.
19:01Instead of giving it to the people
19:03for whom the Freedmen's Bureau was created,
19:06they gave it to white people.
19:11The government says, guess what?
19:13I changed my mind.
19:14I'm going to take it back.
19:17There's all these policies that are giving away land
19:19to white Americans as if they're shooting t-shirts
19:22out of a t-shirt gun.
19:24This is the Cold War to restore America to its own people.
19:30After the Great Depression, FDR comes in and says,
19:35I have this radically progressive idea
19:37that's going to funnel money into America.
19:42The New Deal was the greatest economic giveaway
19:45in the history of the Western world,
19:48which gave away millions of acres of land to white people.
19:56USDA Rural Development supports the American Dream.
20:01It costs a whole lot of money to put plants in the ground
20:05and to grow them.
20:06A lot of farmers apply for loans
20:08from the federal government every single year,
20:11and they get these from the USDA.
20:13Black folks were never able to get the same amount
20:17of federal aid as white farmers.
20:19So let us pay $100,000 a year like they do everybody else
20:26instead of having to pay all of it at once.
20:28You're afraid that a majority of blacks could get control of the county.
20:34I'm not afraid of it because I don't expect to live to see that day.
20:41The white people see this as a threat to their whole way of life.
20:44They were denied at higher rates, they were made to jump through hoops,
20:50and they were penalized if they were quote-unquote uppity.
20:54In 1997, the National Black Farmers Association sued the United States Department of Agriculture
21:03for the act of discrimination.
21:04The class action lawsuit that they brought was called Pickford v. Glickman.
21:10It was a lawsuit against the USDA.
21:12When white farmers came in, they would process their loans less than 30 days,
21:17and for black farmers, it took 387 days on average.
21:22We were trying to purchase land through the loan process.
21:26We were told that black people do not farm.
21:28In the end, they didn't quite get exactly what they wanted.
21:33The vast majority never received a dime from the federal government.
21:37The billions of dollars in federal aid promised to them is on hold.
21:40John Boyd Jr. says he sees the withheld funding quote,
21:44like the 40 acres and a mule, empty promises to blacks and other farmers of color.
21:49What really happened over the course of history is every single incentive we had
21:55in the federal government, in our banking system,
21:59in the fact that black folks had a 200-year handicap in their ability to even possess land.
22:04And those things all conspired together to end up in this mass dispossession.
22:13I think people should know the term great land robbery.
22:17It is one of the single biggest and most important moments in black history in America.
22:27Booker T. Washington said that since the bulk of our people already have a foundation in agriculture,
22:34they are at their best, living in the country engaged in agricultural pursuit.
22:44Post-Civil War, the one silver lining that white America didn't really expect is that
22:49black people just never gave up on the South.
22:52We have owned land in North Carolina since just about a decade after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
22:58My great-great-great-grandfather is one of the black people who becomes a landowner,
23:03buys land from a white woman. She had a plantation that she could not afford to keep without forced labor,
23:09and so he's able to benefit from the ruins of the Confederacy.
23:15Zen, land ownership is your future.
23:20Being a kid and being on land that your family owns is so freeing.
23:25I got married on that land. I hope that my son gets married on that land,
23:29and that there are so many celebrations to come on it.
23:32Our ancestors literally bled, sweated, cried on that soil, and now we can be victorious.
23:39We can laugh. We can be joyful. We can be in love on that same land.
23:43And what a full-circle moment to be a part of, to be the generation that gets the look back.
23:54We're sitting on some really good ground.
24:07We have the highest population of black producers in the United States.
24:12And I always tell people the reason why is we have a big river called the Trinity River
24:16that runs right here through Butler.
24:18The boat pretty much let us off here, and this is where we end up staying.
24:27That history is a reason why I'm really trying to build generational wealth here.
24:38When you think of wealth in this nation, real estate and property are so central to that.
24:42In one lifetime, a home can go from being a hundred thousand dollars to well over seven figures.
24:49And so when black people don't have land, whether that's a home, whether that's a farm,
24:53whether that's a business to pass on, we are missing out on crucial parts of building generational wealth.
25:00And so we're just forever trading in our work for an hourly wage.
25:04My name is Kimberly Ratcliffe. I am a cowgirl. I am also manager of Caney Creek Ranch and owner of Ratcliffe Premium Meats.
25:14So it's 10 pounds of flank steak. Then we have the rack of lambs. Then we have those three...
25:20Accumulating land, just to have land to me is not important.
25:24Accumulating land with an intent to do something with it is important.
25:27My dad bought his first plot of land in 1975. He always had a dream of owning more land,
25:36but he also wanted to operate it. So in order to operate it, he realized he had to go into corporate
25:41America's job to actually afford to operate land. So my dad's job took us to New York.
25:50I work for a major computer company, International Business Machines.
25:54I managed to plant for IBM in Brooklyn.
25:59I thought I wanted to work in the area that my dad worked in. I thought I wanted to be a city girl.
26:07But I decided after a while that I wanted to do something different.
26:11And I was driving by the location where I am now, and I saw a sign out there. And the sign said for sale.
26:20We're seeing this return back to the land right now.
26:22And I think it is the boomerang of the great migration. I've been calling it the great return
26:28because it is often black people in these great migration destination cities like Chicago,
26:33Newark, New York, Oakland, who are returning to rural Southern and Midwestern roots.
26:38But now they have economic means, political power. And so they're coming back to the South
26:43with a lot more resources than when they left.
26:46When I was in New York, I worked for Bloomberg Financial. And I realized there was a huge disconnect,
26:53mainly because of the food system. I don't think they understood what it really took to grow our food.
27:03But at the same time, you guys want to trade our food. You want to decide what the price is on our food.
27:08So after my parents bought the operation that I'm sitting on right now, I wanted to connect myself
27:13back to where everything was grown and pretty much where my family's roots were.
27:17So I have my livestock company, which just buys all the livestock. And then I have the meat processing
27:30company that then processes the livestock. Then I have my cold storage company. Then I have my
27:37marketing company. And then I have the distribution. And that nonprofit side takes all these producers
27:43that I'm working with on a daily basis and making sure they can grow. Oh yeah, it's done.
27:51I think we're at a point now where we're tired of superficial things. All that's going to fade away
27:56eventually, but that land's going to be there.
28:01Leaving New York was not an easy choice, but I felt I had to to keep this family land together.
28:08When I came here, I was bombarded with people saying,
28:10hey, I want to get the next generation. I want to get my kids and stuff to do what you did,
28:15to come back to the ranch. And I can see the same story for you.
28:18Yeah.
28:19We have done so much that we need to be proud of,
28:21and that's what's going to bring the kids up. Not necessarily talking about the cotton pit in times.
28:26We have to talk about it, right? There's nothing wrong with talking about it,
28:30but we also need to talk about the beautiful things that are happening in this community and say,
28:33hey, we're not doing that anymore. We're building such a beautiful community now. Come back.
28:38Yeah.
28:39For many of us, we respond to the trauma of slavery by rejecting anything agricultural.
28:45But Afropastoralism is about honoring the fact that our history does not begin or end with slavery.
28:52That before we were forced laborers on the American continent, we were chosen stewards on the African
28:57continent. And we loved land. We grew things because it fed us, because it healed us,
29:03because it was a thing that we've done since the beginning of time.
29:05All right, man. Hey, see my babies.
29:11Okay, so I'm super excited because we just mapped out what we're going to do with my land here.
29:14I get to use the lake for irrigation, which is dope, super sustainable.
29:20Do you hear that? They're literally talking to each other.
29:22It's a cow's name.
29:23Ah.
29:23Antonio Enrique Cortez Leche.
29:26Serena.
29:27There you go.
29:28That's the name of the cow.
29:29So I let the kids do the name of it.
29:30And you just call it Leche.
29:33On the football field, I'm just trying to get from point A to point B as fast as possible.
29:37Right.
29:37You know, but here in the farm, I'm a little bit more gentle.
29:40You got to have your knees bent.
29:41I think I might be more scared to pick up the chicken than anything.
29:45I'd rather know how to grow food than put a basketball in a hoop,
29:48and that's the only thing I know how to do.
29:51I'd much rather learn how to be fruitful off the land, and that's the real wealth.
29:54I want you guys to be inspired to invest, to put your money in the land,
29:57because there's nothing like it.
29:58There's nothing sexier than being a farmer.
30:01I do say so myself.
30:02So we'll have a little trail ride, and then enjoy a meal.
30:06Okay.
30:07Enjoy the celebration.
30:08Enjoy the day.
30:09Let me first thank all of you for coming to Radcliffe Candy Creek Ranch today.
30:14Juneteenth has been special to me all my life, and probably all your life as well.
30:19Juneteenth is the day that we were no longer slaves.
30:22It's the day in the books that's stamped that says you guys are free, free to own land,
30:28free to be our own entrepreneurs, free to grow and prosper.
30:32I appreciate everyone for coming out tonight.
30:34I made these phone calls, and not one of you guys said no.
30:37I had an old uncle, old Uncle George.
30:43Uncle George had been a slave.
30:45And when I met Uncle George, he was 102 years old.
30:48He said, whatever you do, young fella, don't give up.
30:52And I've listened to that.
30:54I don't give up.
30:54We cannot get rid of that history.
30:58That history needs to be here.
31:00That is my ultimate goal, is for this land to be in my family long after I'm gone.
31:16The history of our land was what made it so special.
31:31Great-great-grandfather is buried in our family cemetery.
31:35It is a beautiful place.
31:37It is a contemplative place.
31:39It's a place where I will spend the rest of my existence as ashes on this planet and in this realm.
31:47Daniel Alexander is there by the cactus.
31:50His tombstone is basically a tombstone-shaped rock.
31:54According to the records, he's been here since 1883.
31:59We are close to the oldest black farm in Travis County and in Austin.
32:05Plenty of people came from farms who are black.
32:07We are still farmers, and we're black.
32:12I used to get the milk for the family cereal.
32:15You didn't know this, Julia, did you?
32:18We picked cotton for our grandfather, you know.
32:21We hauled hay and did that back, you know, way back.
32:25That's what I've done my whole life.
32:27The thing I love most about in the open land is that it is so peaceful.
32:32In 1968, the Texas government took acreage from our farm for the expansion of US 183.
32:40That eminent domain taking did impact the farm in innumerable ways.
32:49Now, the Fifth Amendment says if the government must indeed seize your private property,
32:52they must provide the owner with just compensation.
32:55But as always, they did not mean that for the blacks.
32:58Eminent domain disproportionately affects black people because America hates black people.
33:03If the federal government or local governments ever decided to take private white citizens' property
33:10for the purpose of a park, a lake, a highway, there would be riots.
33:15Similar actions had been taken on our land in 1937 and 1926 before it.
33:22That 37 expansion created several lots that are overrun with all sorts of environmentally toxic businesses.
33:29Businesses that threaten and spoil our groundwater and our air and our soil.
33:34When the water is unclean, it's like, okay, well, we'll have the Flint residents drink that.
33:39You know, when it's time to build a new dump, it's like, let's put that in black people's backyard.
33:44As a result of a drainage issue, the developer on two sides of us flooded our cemetery under three
33:52and a half to four feet of water. The tombstones tilted more. We cannot, without risking the
33:59brittleness of the tombstones, correct them. The highway also split a portion of grandfather's land
34:07so that the edge on the other side was useless to him. So it was gone too.
34:15Part of Central Park was a multiracial but predominantly black neighborhood called Seneca Village.
34:20The land we're standing on is Seneca Village and they were evicted and bulldozed so they could build
34:27this park. Eminent domain is used to take Seneca Village and make it into this beautiful Central Park
34:33and there's just a tiny plaque in one of the entrances that honors it and we almost never tell the story.
34:38The Ford case, where they want to build this blue Ford dealership, this massive plant in western Tennessee,
34:47when they had other means to get to this plant, easier routes, they took black land.
34:52Our country has let us down as black landowners. It's part of the entire development strategy
35:07that happened in just about any urban area in this country.
35:15In 2019, TxDOT approached us about a potential expansion.
35:19We fought back by stakeholder meetings first with TxDOT. We also fought back with lobbying.
35:26They've since put it on a sort of what they call a pause. We were advised that the pause would result
35:33in other routes being explored. This is all the farm. This is us.
35:44And they actually took a part of it to make a road.
35:47TxDOT. How dare they? We will stop this now. We will stop this now.
35:59We'll get it done.
35:59We're here at the Boyd's Farm in Virginia, celebrating a victory that Mr. John Boyd got farmers.
36:27Shit, they've been in everything. Part of me continuing my fight is because of John Boyd
36:36and Kara Boyd. My husband, John Boyd, is a civil rights activist. Kara Boyd is a social justice warrior.
36:44I'm the founder and president of the Association of American Indian Farmers, and I'm a cowgirl.
36:49The American myth of the cowboys has never sat well with me. The Native Americans were never the winners.
36:56They were never the conquerors. They were always murdered and made out to be savages.
37:01It seemed like destiny had brought us together. And I think that that's what really makes a difference,
37:07is that we're able to walk side by side to champion not only agriculture, food sovereignty, but also
37:14for the land and advocating for these farmers who didn't have a voice to speak for themselves.
37:18This dinner sums up what the definition of freedom is, because the federal government,
37:29for the first time in history, sent black farmers two billion dollars in this country.
37:35Well, after years of discrimination, the USDA is giving black and other minority farmers
37:42two billion dollars. Black and minority farmers will begin receiving discrimination relief payments
37:48from the USDA after years of bias in the agency's farm loan program. Now, this financial assistance is not
37:54compensation for anyone's loss or the pain endured, but it is an acknowledgement by the department.
38:00Think of what that payment did for needy black farmers who've been told their whole damn life,
38:07you can't get nothing, you can't get a loan. That is the pain and part of the ammunition
38:14that kept me going for all of these years. We've been told all of these things, and then you get a happy
38:22check in the mailbox to 45,000 farmers in this country. And you know, this is the resilience dinner.
38:34These are people that have survived, man. This is, yes, this is a dinner about survival.
38:40So one of the first people I called was the Mallory's, and they said, Brother Boyd, I got it.
38:47I'm happy. Just tears of joy. This is what it really is. This is really powerful for us to be sitting
38:55here amongst history and other black farmers that are fighting this good fight. And while you guys
39:01have started this, you know, we got to continue on and make sure that this torch is passed down.
39:08This settlement means that black farmers have the option now of passing on generational wealth.
39:14Hey, look, can we get a good photo over here? Yeah. Yes.
39:19I see it as a huge win for black cowboys.
39:24I see it as the biggest victory since the Civil Rights Act.
39:28Black Lives Matter!
39:43Black Lives Matter!
39:48Far outside is Black Lives Matter.
39:50Black Lives Matter.
39:56Meet one of the most high-profile horses in North Texas.
39:59Name Black Lives Matter.
40:01Last month, they won their first race.
40:03They say the best part is hearing the name called over the intercom.
40:08And that's where the...
40:10That's where the shit hit the fan at right there.
40:14The cultural heist is probably the most lucrative part
40:18of the theft of the cowboy.
40:20We're just talking about being allowed to celebrate our music
40:23without bringing in outside sources
40:26that really aren't a part of that genre.
40:29Country music is Black music.
40:31How dare these people close that genre off to us?
40:48This way is very popular.
40:49And for involves storage spaces.
40:51We're Hello.
40:52Paul Fearful Crew.
40:53Tell me is Be
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