In Spring 2020, the Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund collaborated with the South Carolina Lowcountry hip hop group, Native Son, to create the anthem for our campaign, “The Land.” “The Land” is our generation’s love offering to the beautiful struggle to protect 1.5 million acres of Black farmlands from USDA dispossession. Our work continues to grow with Native Son with Restoration: A Concert Film. The film explores southern Black agrarian stories of self-determination, land ownership, and folkwit; amplifies ongoing struggles for restorative land justice in this country including the Black Farmers’ Appeal: Cancel Pigford Debt Campaign; and weaves together live musical performances from Native Son and the personal narratives of Black legacy farmers and land stewards throughout the film.

The Black Farmers’ Appeal: Cancel Pigford Debt Campaign is a grassroots organizing, popular education, and legal advocacy campaign to rectify the injustices of the Pigford v. Glick class action discrimination lawsuit. Inspired by David Walker’s impassioned entreaty against the chattel enslavement of Africans in the United States, the Black Farmers’ Appeal: Cancel Pigford Debt Campaign is a polemic against yet another form of racialized capitalism–unconscionable debt. Our coalition is comprised of a multigenerational tribe of farmers, attorneys, writers, artists, and musicians using our diverse magic to bring restorative land justice to our Black legacy farmers. We use diverse strategies to preserve the Black agricultural land base, exploring innovative collaborations that deepen the linkages of music, culture, ecocultural traditions, and cooperative economy to protect Black landownership and stewardship, while raising community awareness, collectivism, and action. We also merge the aims of our campaign with our cooperative economy works with fiber artists, heritage quilters, and keepers of material culture.