‘My Father Farmed This Land’: Black Generational Farmers In Georgia Fighting to Reclaim Land Taken by State Government to Make Room for New Railroad

A Black farm-owning couple in Georgia is in the middle of a legal battle to take back a portion of land seized by the state government to be used for a new rail line in a predominantly Black rural community. Blaine and Diane Smith joined several other property owners in Sparta, Georgia, in filing a joint petition against the Sandersville Railroad Company after the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved the business’s request to condemn their land to make way for its Hanson Spur project. Black farmer standing in crop field. Photo by Ariel Skelley. Getty Images. Sandersville first filed a petition last March to acquire part of the property belonging to another generational landowner in Sparta under the state’s eminent domain power, which allows government agencies to take private property for public use, even if property owners don’t want to sell. However, the state must justly compensate the owners and the properties must be condemned before they’re seized. Other property owners, including the Smiths, whose parcels would also be required for the spur line, challenged Sandersville’s petition, expressing their desires to retain possession of all their land. Then, in July 2023, Sandersville amended its initial request to ask the...