Program at Library Sept. 4 Focuses On History of Young Black Farmers
The Fayette Heritage Museum and Archives is excited to welcome Bobby J. Smith, II, associate professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, for a presentation and book signing at 6:30 p.m. on Friday evening, September 4th, in the library’s meeting room at 855 S. Jefferson Street in La Grange.
Dr. Smith’s newly released book, “Black Farm Boys: The Untold Story of the New Farmers of America,” is published by the University of North Carolina Press. Described as a pivotal but largely forgotten Black agricultural organization founded in 1935, the New Farmers of America (NFA) was the first national organization for African American boys studying vocational agriculture at segregated public high schools across the South.
Dr. Smith earned his Ph.D. in Developmental Sociology from Cornell University in 2018. Born and raised in Texas, Smith has said he is “the proud product of generations of Black farmers, sharecroppers and other Black folk who worked the land across the rural South in places like Waco, Texas and Fayette County, North Carolina.”
The Museum and Archives staff first met Smith in 2022 when he began researching the NFA’s history at Randolph High School in La Grange. Chapter 4 of his book has the title, “Black Agriculture Teachers Matter: The Randolph NFA Chapter in Texas,” and contains numerous photographs taken in La Grange. The book’s cover features the Randolph NFA Livestock and Poultry Show, circa 1962, from the personal collection of Lorenza Crosby, Jr. of La Grange.
Dr. Smith was fortunate to have Mr. Crosby relate his first-hand experience as an agriculture teacher and NFA sponsor here at Randolph High School from 1959 to 1965. Smith writes, Crosby “had inherited a Randolph NFA chapter that was mostly focused on livestock shows and fairs—activities designed to build a generation of farm boys who would become farmers—but recognized the shift in the agricultural economy of the nation in the 1960s and decided to lead the Randolph NFA in a different direction.” He worked to provide his students with skills to enhance their communities and “challenged them to think differently about agriculture as it related to careers through the lens of agricultural mechanics.”
When local schools were integrated, Crosby began his long career at La Grange High School. However, the inte-gration of public schools also brought an end to the New Farmers of America, which means that most of the young men who were NFA members are now in their late seventies or older. The Museum and Archives staff hope that past members will attend and share their memories. Dr. Smith’s first book, Food Power Politics: The Food Story of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement was published by UNC Press in 2023 and has won multiple awards. Signed copies of Black Farm Boys will be available immediately after the program and later on the shelves of the Museum and Archives’ gift shop upstairs above the Fayette Public Library.
Those attending the program and book signing should use the meeting room’s afterhours entrance toward the rear of the building along Franklin Street.