“To Scratch and Crow under Our Own Vine and Fig Tree”

Abstract Established in Chicago in 1922, the National Federation of Colored Farmers counteracted Black farmers’ marginalization in such national agrarian organizations as the American Farm Bureau Federation. It further leveraged its newspaper, the Modern Farmer, to recruit members in the first half of the twentieth century. Between the 1920s and the late 1940s the organization shifted from being extremely critical of the Farm Bureau to later embracing what it offered to farmers regardless of their racial backgrounds.