Black Farmers: Pursuing BlueOval Business

 

Thomas Burrell is president of the Black Farmers and
Agriculturalists Association and advocates for Black farmers
like himself. Photo by Patricia Rogers

MEMPHIS, TN – The $5.6 billion dollar Ford Motor Company’s BlueOval City project is being built on farmland in Haywood County, Tenn., approximately 70 miles from Memphis.

While the plant is a boon for Haywood County, Thomas Burrell believes it is an opportunity for Black farmers and landowners in the area to create generational wealth by incorporating and developing the land around BlueOval City.

Burrell is a farmer from Covington, Tenn., and president of the Memphis-based 20,000-member Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFAA), a nonprofit organization.

In 1991, Burrell protested the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in his hometown for allegedly discriminating against Black farmers. The protest gained traction nationally and morphed into the historic (Pigford v. Glickman) 1999 class-action lawsuit against the USDA. 

The lawsuit alleged racial discrimination against Black farmers in its allocation of farm loans and assistance between 1981 and 1996. It was settled in 2010 during the Obama administration.

Burrell is now focused on creating long-term economic development opportunities for BFAA members who own land in proximity to BlueOval City. 

“We want real wealth creation with an initiative for fair and equitable treatment of Black farmers and landowners who have land on the $5.6 billion dollar Ford Motor Company’s BlueOval City project,” he said.

By 2025, Ford’s mega plant is expected to be the largest facility in the world for manufacturing electric vehicles and batteries. Burrell, however, is looking at the big picture. 

How can Black farmers and landowners benefit from the windfall in Haywood County and not become “victims of the overall economic development process, which often excludes African Americans?” he said.

“We're gonna have to incorporate in order to collaborate,” Burrell said. “It is hard or difficult for Ford Motor Company or General Motors or Nissan to cooperate or collaborate with an unincorporated entity.”

Most of the land that African Americans own – whether it is in Tennessee, Alabama or Kentucky – will be unincorporated, Burrell said, even though “African Americans own millions of acres in this country.”

In some cases, African Americans can’t prove that they own their land, he said, when there isn’t a clear deed or title to the property.

He said unequivocally that “nobody's gonna do business with you if you can't prove that you own it (land). If there's a cloud on a title, why would they want to do business with the person with a defective title to his property?”

Then there’s the issue of eminent domain that concerns Burrell. He said some BFAA members have been asked to surrender some of their land to extend Tennessee State Route 194 into BlueOval City.

“The issue (or grievance) is whether or not they are receiving just compensation,” he said, compared to white farmers and landowners.

However, Burrell believes generational wealth is possible when Black landowners develop a part of their land rather than sell it. “You can't give your grandchildren what you’ve sold,” he said.

“Traditionally, when we look out into the field now, we see cotton and soybeans,” Burrell said. “But if you're next door to an automobile manufacturer that's investing $6 billion, you won't see soybeans; you won't see cotton.” 

He said the new crop will be hotels, restaurants, warehouses, homes, apartments, and other development, including infrastructure. 

But first and foremost, Black farmers and landowners must incorporate “to create a building bloc,” said Burrell, using as an example a member of BFAA whose father incorporated the land before he died decades ago.

He said the member is talking to his neighbors and trying to encourage them to incorporate and collaborate on increasing their acreage to attract mega corporations like BlueOval City.

Corporations, he emphasized, will not do business with “unincorporated entities.”