In her 1998 article “African Americans and TVA Reservoir Property Removal: Race in a New Deal Program,” Melissa Walker discusses the relocation process of local farmers due to dam construction projects from racial perspectives. The author argues that despite increasing the overall prosperity of the local communities, the policies and projects of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) did not address the well-being of the white population and Afro-American citizens equally.
For example, Walker studies East Tennessee analyzing the average pre-relocation economic conditions of two races mentioned above and cases of discrimination that appeared during the removal of black people to other properties. In this regard, the researcher maintains that due to the differences in the average value of the farms, Afro-American people were more susceptible to relocation as TVA sought to move poor and ineffective landowners. Moreover, Walker states that removal workers did not offer sufficient help to black people as they did to white counterparts. However, although the author’s arguments that prove the existence of discrimination are persuasive, the paper has some minor reasoning flaws that should be discussed.
First of all, the fact that relatively more black people were removed from their lands by TVA does not mean that the choice was primarily motivated by racial discrimination. The author agrees that Afro-American farmers were on average poorer than their white counterparts. However, it is also mentioned that the main purpose of relocation – except construction – included the release of the land, which would ensure further expansion of prosperous households.
Therefore, the fact of intentional discrimination is questionable as TVA primarily pursued other purposes. Rather, it proves that inequality already existed in the region on the institutional level. However, the question of whether TVA should have sought to prioritize solving the racial issue over reaching maximum prosperity is debatable, especially considering the context of the Great Depression.
Next, although Walker mentions that unfair treatment existed due to racial and status-based prejudices, the author does not profoundly analyze the latter cases. For that reason, it is unclear how much each of the factors influenced the removal workers’ behavior separately. Of course, this notion does not imply that racial discrimination did not exist, but the extent to which it existed is left unknown. For instance, the comparison of poor African-American and poor white farmers’ cases would help to better understand racial inequality as the status of those people is similar.
Finally, the same logic applies to the author’s argument that “Poor African Americans also faced problems in navigating the authority’s bureaucracy because of discrimination against them and their own lack of education” (Walker 426). It can be hypothesized that the latter had the same or even greater impact on eviction policies as uneducated white people would also encounter difficulties while moving to another place.
However, again it is not quite clear what was the extent of discriminative attitudes towards black farmers. As a result, when the author says, “The TVA did little to aid black farm families in the Tennessee Valley…” it is obscure whether Afro-Americans were the only unfairly treated group (Walker 428). Therefore, although the scope of the paper includes racism against black people, the researchers’ arguments that are taken out of context may be misleading.
In conclusion, the author presented a number of crucial historical facts that proved the existence of racial discrimination against African Americans during the relocation process led by TVA. Walker provides numerous cases of unfair treatment that black people had to face and the reasons behind such practices. As for the latter, it is argued that most of the relocation workers were raised in a culture that approves racial segregation; thus, they did not make any efforts to help Afro-Americans with the search for new homes.
However, it is argued that some arguments used by the researcher were flawed. It is noted that although removal workers may behave discriminatorily, it is not justified that TVA policy encouraged unjust treatment. Moreover, racial injustice is viewed separately from the other types of unfair treatments, which may lead to skewed conclusions.
Work Cited
Walker, Melissa. “African Americans and TVA Reservoir property removal: Race in a New Deal program.” Agricultural history, vol. 72, no. 2, 1998, pp. 417-428.