Center for Minority Land and Community Security
Mission and Goals
The overall goal of the Center for Minority Land and Community Security is to enhance and empower minority rural communities by addressing land tenure issues that they define as critical.
The center is organized to work within the rural Africa American, Native American/Native Alaskan, and Hispanic American/Latino communities. The participating partners work to encourage and support activities in land retention, acquisition, and land based economic development that focus on the long-term economic viability of whole communities.
The Center also participates in programs and projects that are designed to empower, reduce the economic risks, and increase economic opportunities for people of color in rural communities while addressing the issues of:
- Land Retention. Minority land loss continues at an alarming rate – much faster than land loss among the majority population. Our goal is to slow this disproportionate trend.
- Land-Based Enterprise Viability. Once minority-owned land is saved or recovered, the next necessary step is to make it viable. We plan to work with community-based organizations to develop alternative enterprises that will permit minority owners to keep their land.
- Land Acquisition. Minority groups are trying not only to stem their loss of land, but also to expand their land ownership. The aim of the Center is to indirectly support efforts toward land recovery by promoting land retention and land-based viability projects.
Partners
Tuskegee University: The George Washington Carver Agricultural Experiment Station (GWC-AES) and the College of Agricultural, Environmental and Natural Sciences (CAENS), Tuskegee, Alabama
The University of Wisconsin–Madison: The Department of Rural Sociology (RS) and the Land Tenure Center/North American Program (LTC/NAP), Madison, Wisconsin
The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund (FSC/LAF), East Point, Georgia
The Indian Land Working Group (ILWG), Albuquerque, New Mexico
NewFarms, Santa Fe, New Mexico
New Mexico State University, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Las Cruces, New Mexico