Creating Our Own Rules

If you’ve heard the saying “40 acres and a mule” and have no idea where it came from, it comes from the idea that freed slaves were supposed to get 40 acres and a mule, which of course, they never received. As a result, black Americans are on a mission to build the generational wealth that they were robbed of. 

After surviving under the curtain of cruelty aka systemic racism for so long, some black families have decided to take matters into their own hands. Ashley Scott, a realtor in Georgia, teamed up with her good friend who also happens to be an investor, Renee Walters. Together, they came up with the “The Freedom Georgia Initiative”. The purpose of this initiative is to create a self-sustaining black community. 

Ashley Scott says that in doing so, this community could bring about real change. She always believes that they can create real generational wealth for all the families involving by investing in the land. Ashley isn’t the only one who is thinking like this. More and more black families are buying themselves acres of land in an attempt to combat the drastically low numbers of black landowners. These families hope to create a legacy for themselves. 

Scott and the 19 other families plan to employ black farmers, BIPOC, and women-owned vendors and contractors. They hope to build a community where black people can feel safe and live without fear of being murdered simply for being who they are. 

This idea isn’t a new one and has been around for a while. Africans have survived on communal lands in the past and used this land to preserve their customs and recipes. It was a way to adapt and ultimately, survive and resist. W.E.B. Dubois believed that there was a need for “Economic Co-Operation Among Negroes” to help combat the effects of segregation. Then there were freedom farms in the 1960s. 

Black people have resisted and found ways to thrive for years and will undoubtedly continue to do so. This is just one way of doing that. By creating their own communities, black families can develop their own affordable housing, create their own supply and demand chains, create their own sources of food, create their own schooling systems, and vote in city officials that they can trust. 

Creating an entire city and community from scratch is a huge undertaking. The work that it takes aside from physical labor, the emotional and mental labor that goes into creating a whole community from the ground up is incredible. But if that’s what needs to be done in an effort to keep members of the black community safe, then so be it. 

-Kaitlan Darby

Kaitlan Darby is a recent graduate of UL Lafayette. She has a B.A. in Mass Communication with a concentration in Public Relations and a minor in promotional management. She is a publicist, writer, and aspiring actress. She is the founder of Black Mamba Creative, which is her own creative arts/services outlet.

Instagram: @blackmambacreative

LinkedIn: Kaitlan Darby

Website: kaitlandarby.wixsite.com/portfolio

Photo by Prince Akachi.