The topic of reparations for African American descendants of the enslaved invariably is framed in the form of a check.
But momentum appears to be taking reparations back to its land-based roots, most famously voiced in the promise of “40 acres and a mule.” And a collaboration between Richmond’s Duron Chavis, an urban agriculturalist and food activist, and Callie Walker, the daughter of an Amelia County cattle farmer, has resulted in a effort to provide reparations for descendants of the enslaved on 80 acres Walker inherited from her parents.
Chavis and Walker are putting the word out about their effort — a project of their nascent nonprofit Central Virginia Agrarian Commons — to be stewards of acreage that would grant low-cost or no-cost 99-year leases to individuals who want to farm on the land at Amelia Court House, about 40 miles southwest of downtown Richmond.
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Community members would be schooled on farming at a 5-acre site in Petersburg before heading to Amelia, where land, equipment and philanthropic resources would be available for their use. “That way, we’re building a system between rural and urban where farmers can actually not have to go into debt to farm,” Chavis said Monday.
Central Virginia Agrarian Commons had hoped to build multiple housing units for the farmers on the property, but zoning restrictions prevented that. Instead, in upcoming months, the nonprofit will begin fundraising to build a bed and breakfast as a starter house for a family or two, as a business, or as a retreat center.
Walker and Chavis connected at a workshop of the Agrarian Trust, which promotes equitable land access for future farmers and ranchers.
During the workshop, Agrarian Trust “gave us a pretty brief but pretty appalling history of practices” by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including discrimination against Black farmers, Walker said. “My husband and I already knew that we wanted to donate this land” to environmental food growers, she said; after the presentation, they concluded that the donation must benefit African American environmental food growers.
Duron Chavis
Chavis was already in conversations with Agrarian Trust, and “it just kind of took off from there” in January 2020, Walker said. They formed a board, including consultant Renard Turner, co-owner and operator of Vanguard Ranch in Louisa County. Last September, Agrarian Trust facilitated the transfer of Walker’s 80 acres to Central Virginia Agrarian Commons.
If African Americans are conflicted about returning to our agrarian roots in America, our skepticism is hard-earned. There is the traumatic legacy of enslavement, the broken promise of property redistribution after Emancipation, and the loss of land through theft, violence, eminent domain and lack of access to USDA loans. Another problem is heirs property — land passed down to descendants without a will or deed — which left owners vulnerable to partition sales.
Callie Walker
In 1910, about 14% of U.S. farmers were Black, owning more than 16 million acres; now, only one in 100 farmers is Black, owning less than 5 million acres, according to a PBS story on the documentary “Gaining Ground: The Fight for Black Land.”
Chavis knows this history of land misappropriation all too well. But he argues that reconnecting Black folks with the land will not only heal communities, but a planet ailing from climate change.
“The land didn’t do anything to us,” he said. “There’s a difference between the land and the oppression that happened on the land. The land is necessary.”
Land-based reparations came up during a meeting last Wednesday of the Virginia Commission to Study Slavery and Subsequent De Jure and De Facto Racial and Economic Discrimination Against African Americans. Commission member John W. Kinney said members of a Black realtors group proposed the donation of vacant state land for housing as a form of reparations.
“People are seeing another way,” beyond individualism and immediate gratification, Chavis said. “We can all boss up together if we work together” and take lessons from Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rev. Charles and Shirley Sherrod, Chavis said, citing pioneers of the land trust movement.
“They laid blueprints down as far as how we can take care of our community through shared and cooperative ownership, for housing as well as agriculture,” he said. “This is where our movement left off, to be frank, after the Civil Rights Act passed.”
The Amelia farm on which Walker grew up has a complicated history of its own.
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When her father purchased the property in 1968, it had a plantation house on it. The family soon sold the house, which was dismantled, moved to Goochland and rebuilt. But two years ago — through the book “The Unsung African American Heroes of Amelia County, Volume 1” by Minister Emanuel Hyde III — she learned that the plantation once belonged to a man named Nathaniel Harrison, who fell in love with an enslaved woman owned by his brother Edmund.
Edmund learned of his brother’s affection for Frankey Miles and planned to sell her into the Deep South. But his brother had a friend purchase her instead. Nathaniel Harrison then purchased and freed Miles. Upon his death in 1852, he left the 1,100-acre site to Miles and their children, Walker said.
Their descendants held onto various pieces of the land and some remain in Amelia, Walker said. Descendants of people enslaved there also remain in the county. “And so my hope is that descendants of people who were enslaved on this property will end up being the ones who control it, and decide what to do with it and how to use it and what to grow here,” she said.
Walker’s husband, Pastor Dan Walker, leads United Methodist Church congregations in Amelia and Nottoway counties. Callie Walker was a United Methodist clergywoman in Philadelphia but is now on leave from that role in the church. They have no children to whom they can pass on property. “So I’m proud and honored to be part of a reparations project and to have inherited land that I can do this with.”
The goal is to build a community of people descended from the enslaved in Amelia, “so that folks can actively participate in their repair or that healing that comes along with land-based reparations,” Chavis said. Central Virginia Agrarian Commons is seeking a conservation easement that would prevent commercial development of the acreage.
“We’re not giving you a check, but we’re going to give you 80 acres of land,” Chavis said of the project. “What do you do with that land to empower your community for generations to come? What you can do with land as a wealth-building strategy for your community is a real conversation.”
It is a conversation that is a century and a half overdue.
PHOTOS: Hollywood Cemetery, from the RTD archives
Valentine Richmond History Center’s Saturday afternoon guided walking tour of Hollywood Cemetery focuses on the role womena’s groups played in the cemetery’s history.
Friends of Hollywood Cemetery began a year ago as the fundraising adjunct of Hollywood Cemetery, in Richmond, Va. The group has gotten $70,000 in grants toward restoration of the Presidents Circle section, phase one of the restoration project. Here, a new stone now stands where one needed retoring within the Presidents Circle.
Confederate flags are placed in front of tomb stones of Confederate soldiers at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond on Wednesday, July 15, 2015.
Bill Brown, left, and other members of Sons of Confederate Veterans, salute to Confederate Flag after Pledge of Allegiance to US Flag during a historical marker dedication ceremony for Dr. Rufus Benjamin Weaver at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond on Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Dr. Weaver is credited with bringing bodies of Confederate soldiers from Gettysburg for burial back in the South.
A historical marker of Dr. Rufus Benjamin Weaver is placed at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond on Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Dr. Weaver is credited with bringing bodies of Confederate soldiers from Gettysburg for burial back in the South.
A couple jogs down one of the roads that crisscross Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015.
The newly-restored Rinceau style fence beside Presidents Circle in Hollywood Cemetery. in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015. The restoration was funded by the Anne Carter Robins and Walter R. Robins, Jr. Foundation.
A woman and child walk down one of the roads that crisscross Hollywood Cemetery. in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015.
Members of Sons of Confederate Veterans march during a historical marker dedication ceremony for Dr. Rufus Benjamin Weaver at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond on Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Dr. Weaver is credited with bringing bodies of Confederate soldiers from Gettysburg for burial back in the South.
Presidents Circle in Hollywood Cemetery is the final resting place for 2 US presidents, James Monroe (center) and John Tyler.
Richmond from Hollywood Cemetery, 1854, 536.01 Valentine Richmond History Center by William MacLeod; engraving
A woman and child walk down one of the roads that crisscross Hollywood Cemetery. in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015.
Anna Nicholson likes to walk through Hollywood Cemetery because it is “beautiful and scenic out here,” she said Tuesday, February 24, 2015. She is a runner, but walks when it is cold.
Anna Nicholson likes to walk through Hollywood Cemetery because it is “beautiful and scenic out here,” she said Tuesday, February 24, 2015. She is a runner, but walks when it is cold.
Katie Montgomery, VCU freshman, walks through Palmer Chapel with her bicycles at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond on Tuesday, September 23, 2014. Montgomery, an art student, visits the cemetery quite often for drawing a picture as well as having some quite time.
Anna Nicholson likes to walk through Hollywood Cemetery because it is “beautiful and scenic out here,” she said Tuesday, February 24, 2015. She is a runner, but walks when it is cold.
The grave of President James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States, who was reinterred in Hollywood Cemetery in 1858 at Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery. The cemetery’s website says that the Gothic Revival ironwork above the grave is nicknamed “The Birdcage.” July 11, 2015.
1-31-1941: Taps for a Confederate – Company C of the Richmond Blues today fired a salute over the grave of John Wesley Blizzard, 97, last Confederate soldier at the Confederate Soldiers’ Home here, who died Wednesday. Military rites were held at Hollywood Cemetery. Colors were borne by American Legion Post, No. 1. In attendance were members of the U.D.C., and members of the board of R.E. Lee Camp acted as pallbearers.
Anna Nicholson likes to walk through Hollywood Cemetery because it is “beautiful and scenic out here,” she said Tuesday, February 24, 2015. She is a runner, but walks when it is cold.
Jane Hendley walks her dog Trudy in Hollywood Cemetery Tuesday, February 24, 2015.
Anna Nicholson likes to walk through Hollywood Cemetery because it is “beautiful and scenic out here,” she said Tuesday, February 24, 2015. She is a runner, but walks when it is cold.
A member of Sons of Confederate Veterans salutes during the historical marker dedication ceremony for Dr. Rufus Benjamin Weaver at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond on Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Dr. Weaver is credited with bringing bodies of Confederate soldiers from Gettysburg for burial back in the South.
Rose bush was planted next to a tomb at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.
People walk through Hollywood Cemetery during a Valentine Richmond History Center walking tour Sunday, July 13, 2008.
The gravesite of the president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va. July 11, 2015.
Title: [Richmond, Va. Tomb of President James Monroe in Hollywood Cemetery] Date Created/Published: 1865. Medium: 1 negative (2 plates) : glass, stereograph, wet collodion. Summary: Photograph from the main eastern theater of war, fallen Richmond, April-June 1865. Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-cwpb-02923 (digital file from original neg. of left half) LC-DIG-cwpb-02924 (digital file from original neg. of right half) LC-B8171-3379 (b&w film copy neg.) Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication. Call Number: LC-B811- 3379 [P&P] Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA Notes: Civil War photographs, 1861-1865 / compiled by Hirst D. Milhollen and Donald H. Mugridge, Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 1977. No. 0523 Title from Milhollen and Mugridge. Two plates form left (LC-B811-02923) and right (LC-B811-02924) halves of a stereograph pair. File print in LOT 4162-C. Forms part of Selected Civil War photographs, 1861-1865 (Library of Congress)
Jane Hendley walks her dog Trudy in Hollywood Cemetery Tuesday, February 24, 2015.
Crosses frame a view of the Robert E. Lee Bridge from Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015.
Bill Brown, a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans, reads a photo frame of the Gettysburg historical marker for Dr. Rufus Benjamin Weaver during a historical marker dedication ceremony for Dr. Weaver at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond on Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Dr. Weaver is credited with bringing bodies of Confederate soldiers from Gettysburg for burial back in the South.
The newly-restored Rinceau style fence beside Presidents Circle in Hollywood Cemetery. in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015. The restoration was funded by the Anne Carter Robins and Walter R. Robins, Jr. Foundation.
Jane Hendley walks her dog Trudy in Hollywood Cemetery Tuesday, February 24, 2015.
Friends of Hollywood Cemetery began a year ago as the fundraising adjunct of Hollywood Cemetery, in Richmond, Va. The group has gotten $70,000 in grants toward restoration of the Presidents Circle section, phase one of the restoration project. Here, a new stone now stands where one needed retoring within the Presidents Circle.
A stone angel is silhouetted in front of a view of the city from Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015. The monument on the right is the grave of former Virginia governor Fitzhugh Lee.
1-31-1941: Taps for a Confederate – Company C of the Richmond Blues today fired a salute over the grave of John Wesley Blizzard, 97, last Confederate soldier at the Confederate Soldiers’ Home here, who died Wednesday. Military rites were held at Hollywood Cemetery. Colors were borne by American Legion Post, No. 1. In attendance were members of the U.D.C., and members of the board of R.E. Lee Camp acted as pallbearers.
A stone angel is silhouetted in front of a view of the city from Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015. The monument on the right is the grave of former Virginia governor Fitzhugh Lee.
Crosses frame a view of the Robert E. Lee Bridge from Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015.
Title: The ceremony at the grave, in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia [Funeral of Pres. James Monroe] Date Created/Published: 1858. Medium: 1 print : wood engraving. Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-73820 (b&w film copy neg.) Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Illus. in: Harper’s Weekly, v. 2, (1858 July 17), p. 457.
Accession No. 1999.161.557 Artist/Maker Wells, J.; Hinshelwood, Robert. (other artist) Title Engraving, “Richmond, Va. and its Vicinity” Dates Second half 19th C. Description Engraving, 1863, by J. Wells. Printed title: “Richmond, Va. and its Vicinity.” A Civil War bird’s-eye view of Richmond, Virginia. Printed credits: “J. Wells, del. R. Hinshelwood, sc. Entered according to act of Congress A. D. 1863 by Virtue Yorston & Co. in the clerk’s office of the district court of the United States for the southern dist. of N. Y. ” Printed text identifies numbered sites in image: “1. James River. 2. Manchester. 3. Spring Hill. 4. James River Canal. 5. Iron & Flour Mills. 6. Hollywood Cemetery. 7. Water Works. 8. Capitol & Square.” 20.64 cm x 28.26 cm Please credit it “Virginia Historical Society, 1999.161.557.”
Members of Virginia Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans wait for a historical marker dedication ceremony for Dr. Rufus Benjamin Weaver at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond on Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Dr. Weaver is credited with bringing bodies of Confederate soldiers from Gettysburg for burial back in the South.
Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery sold its first gravesite in 1849. According to the cemetery’s website, “architect John Notman of Philadelphia was enlisted to design the cemetery. He suggested the name “Hollywood†due to the large amount of holly trees that dotted its hills.” July 11, 2015.
Ian Pearce, center, and Billie Earnest, right, unveil the historical marker of Dr. Rufus Benjamin Weaver at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond on Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Dr. Weaver is credited with bringing bodies of Confederate soldiers from Gettysburg for burial back in the South.
The state is doing a $900K renovation of the James Monroe tomb at Hollywood Cemetery, timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of his election as president.
TONING COMPLETE Richmond Grays march in Memorial Day Parade. Historic military unit leads way to Hollywood Cemetery. ORG XMIT: RIC1405301520039882
In May 1946, the historic Richmond Grays marched in a Memorial Day parade en route to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. The unit was organized in 1844 and served most famously in the Civil War; its history is incorporated in today’s 276th Engineer Battalion of the Virginia National Guard.
A stone angel is silhouetted in front of a view of the city from Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015. The monument on the right is the grave of former Virginia governor Fitzhugh Lee.
A couple jogs down one of the roads that crisscross Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015.
Crosses frame a view of the Robert E. Lee Bridge from Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015.
A woman and child walk down one of the roads that crisscross Hollywood Cemetery. in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015.
A woman and child (above) walked down a road overlooking the James River on Wednesday in Hollywood Cemetery. A stone angel (left) is silhouetted in front of a view of downtown Richmond. The cemetery is planning to build three new stone overlooks to create more options to sit and view the river. The first is expected to be finished this spring. (Details, Page B2)
The newly-restored Rinceau style fence beside Presidents Circle in Hollywood Cemetery. in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015. The restoration was funded by the Anne Carter Robins and Walter R. Robins, Jr. Foundation.
The newly-restored Rinceau style fence beside Presidents Circle in Hollywood Cemetery. in Richmond, VA Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015. The restoration was funded by the Anne Carter Robins and Walter R. Robins, Jr. Foundation.