South East Alabama Self-Help Association (SEASHA), Tuskegee, AL
In the 1960s, southeast Alabama was undergoing dramatic change. The civil rights movement was sweeping the South, and schools were slowly being desegregated. Nevertheless, the social and economic conditions for African Americans in the area remained bleak. Communities that had long been held together by a common vocation - farming - were being threatened by breakthroughs in agricultural technology. With little access to the large amounts of capital needed to modernize, small farmers were being pushed off the land under the pressure of consolidation. Large, predominantly white-owned farms were in a much better position to benefit from new technology and to compete in the new market. In the decades leading up to the 1960s, almost all the black-owned farms in the South were wiped out, sending large number of migrants to the North looking for work. Those remaining in southeast Alabama faced dismal conditions: the counties that comprised Alabama's "black belt" had poverty rates of up to fifty percent, over one-third of this population had less than an eighth grade education, numerous back roads remained unpaved, and many homes lacked running water and sewer lines.
More than Education Needed
In 1965, when John Brown, Jr. was approached by the historically black Tuskegee Institute to work on a Summer Education Program that provided tutorials to black elementary and high school students, he knew that education alone would not help African Americans in southeast Alabama to overcome the barriers to success. Brown had been an educator in Alabama for over fifteen years. As an active participant in the civil rights movement, he had come to understand the forces of economic oppression in the South. He agreed to take the job on the condition that he would be allowed to organize parents and students around efforts to pool their resources and initiate self-help projects. Assisted by Burt Phillips, who was Tuskegee's dean of students and had formerly worked at the federal Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), Brown immediately set out to involve people in a series of meetings aimed at bringing about social change. As Brown describes, "We invited all tutors, tutees and parents to an assembling - we had about 5,000 people - and talked about the possibility of organizing people across political boundaries for the purpose of dealing with the resources at their disposal to improve their economic condition."
One of the main goals of Brown's early organizing efforts was to make people aware that they had a right to meet and participate in democratic decision-making processes. For generations, the oppression of blacks had prevented them from congregating in public facilities and having a voice in public debates. Institutions like city hall and the county court house served to repress rather than guarantee their freedom of expression. The series of meetings organized as part of the Summer Education Program were therefore instrumental in empowering people to use a civic forum to express their opinions.
Creating a Permanent Organization of the People
Brown firmly believed that people should not rely upon well-intentioned university programs funded with federal grants to carry out long-term rural development efforts. As he was to learn in later years, Washington's funding process was simply too political, and was not suited to understanding the needs of small farmers. The solution, he asserted, was to create "a permanent organization of the people, by the people, for the people, that would be in these communities perpetually." Thus, in 1967 the South East Alabama Self-Help Association (SEASHA), a multi-purpose community development corporation (CDC), was formed.
Because SEASHA's leaders believed that the survival of small farming was key to any development strategy in the South, an integral part of the organization's mission was to enable people to use the land as a resource for economic empowerment. To fulfill this aspect of its mission, SEASHA began to initiate programs aimed at helping isolated, undercapitalized small farmers to survive by cooperating on projects and building economies of scale. SEASHA also began to assist low-income residents, particularly those who could not read or write, to gain access to scarce public services in the organization's twelve-county target area. Government agencies were commonly hostile and unresponsive to blacks, and thereby often discouraged many eligible residents from applying for public assistance. To help people to overcome these barriers, SEASHA stationed field workers in each of the twelve counties it served. The task of these organizers, who were indigenous to the communities in which they worked, was to help people to fight for their entitlements and to advocate for improved infrastructure such as water, sewer lines, road paving and electricity.
Pursuing Economic Development
During its formative years, SEASHA spawned a number of innovative ideas on rural development and farming. With the assistance of the Southern Cooperative Development Program, a regional initiative supported by the Ford Foundation, SEASHA was able to secure its first grant, $750,000 from OEO, to test some of its rural economic development concepts. The grant enabled SEASHA to provide technical assistance to small farmers who were trying to retain their land, to coordinate the installation of water systems in its twelve county area, and to form a Feeder Pig Cooperative.
Unfortunately, some of SEASHA's agricultural initiatives, particularly the Feeder Pig Cooperative, were saddled with a number of problems from the start. As is the case with many creative ideas that have to go through a bureaucratic funding process in order to be realized, SEASHA's proposal was not funded as originally envisioned. The main component of SEASHA's proposal was the promotion of diversified agriculture, which would allow small farmers to grow a variety of crops to earn income all year round. OEO's grant only allowed for SEASHA's staff to provide technical assistance, however, and did not provide critical funds for farmers to purchase or lease land to experiment with diversified agriculture. While the Feeder Pig Cooperative was funded, it was never very successful for a number of reasons. It did not get the full support of the State of Alabama, which gave the feeder pigs a lower grade than others of similar quality in the private market, and it encountered a depressed market. Because SEASHA's agricultural proposal was not fully funded and could not be tested in its entirety, it never realized its full potential.
With technical assistance from the Southern Cooperative Development Program,
SEASHA began organizing small, family farmers around principles of cooperative
economics in the early 1970s. The idea was to minimize their operating costs
by purchasing materials together, coordinating production, and regulating prices
so that they could compete with large-scale producers. Through a cooperative
that was established in 1973, SEASHA ran an operation that prepared pigs for
market, a loan program that provided venture capital to farmers interested in
expanding their operations, and a feed mill that helped farmers to cover some
of their operating costs. These programs met with good results for a number
of years until they were forced out of existence because of federal cutbacks
in funding in the 1980s. Another program that was established in 1973 to fulfill SEASHA's mission of
cooperative self-help was its credit union, which offers low-interest consumer
loans to people who have difficulty in gaining access to credit from traditional
financial institutions. Membership in the credit union is open to all of SEASHA's
members at a nominal lifetime fee of three dollars. Over the years, the credit
union has grown significantly. It presently serves over 3,000 members and manages
assets in excess of $3 million. While continuing its agricultural development initiatives, SEASHA soon began
to take advantage of opportunities to expand its focus to address problems of
housing in its twelve county area. Funds for housing development were much more
readily available than for cooperative farming, and the lack of decent, affordable
housing was a major issue in Southeast Alabama. The 1970 census found that over
42,000 families were living in substandard housing within the "black belt."
SEASHA's first housing development initiative was launched as part of a HUD-financed
national experiment to design and build a prototype home for low-income people.
Called the Battelle-Basic Homes Program, the experiment was to be conducted
in three phases in which cost-effective single family homes would be built and
then tested for their acceptability to low-income home buyers. While the program
was discontinued after a strong start, SEASHA was able to build on what it learned
during this experiment with housing production. Within twelve years, SEASHA
had constructed 269 single family garden style homes for low and moderate-income
families. Another one of its successful housing experiments was Sojourner Apartments,
a 100-unit rental complex for elderly and handicapped residents. In order to
meet the social needs of this population, Sojourner offers a range of auxiliary
services, including a community center, a food assistance program, a preventative
health care facility run by Tuskegee University School of Nursing, and social
services provided by the Tuskegee University School of Social Work. Tenants
are encouraged to maintain the complex's flower and vegetable gardens. In order
to avoid the isolation that many senior citizens experience when they move into
housing for the elderly, SEASHA built one of its single family home projects
next to the Sojourner Apartments complex. The organization encourages the families
of the elderly residents to live in these homes. It also provides linkages between
the two projects through various social programs. For four years before the Community Services Administration was disbanded by
the Reagan administration, SEASHA also ran a successful rural home repair program
that employed and trained young workers. By 1992, SEASHA Homes, its independent
subsidiary, had constructed over 300 new single family homes, rehabilitated
75 existing homes, and constructed 192 multi-family apartments for elderly and
handicapped citizens. To ensure that its housing is affordable to low-income
families and individuals, SEASHA makes use of operating subsidies offered under
HUD and Farmers Home Administration programs. In the 1970s, minority business technical assistance centers were programmatically
popular among federal policy makers. SEASHA's leaders understood, however, that
the difficulties minority entrepreneurs encounter are financial as well as technical.
In 1984, with $600,000 from the Economic Development Administration, SEASHA
created a revolving loan fund that provided minority entrepreneurs with greatly
needed high risk capital. By 1992, the fund had made 124 loans available to
minority businesses. These loans totaled $2.5 million, and helped create over
270 new jobs. SEASHA is operated as a membership organization with a decentralized structure.
Today, each of the twelve counties that SEASHA serves sends five representatives
to sit on SEASHA's board of directors. One representative from each county is
selected to serve on its twelve-member executive committee. Initially, county
representatives were more likely to be professionals such as teachers or businessmen
than farmers. Over the years, however, the board has come to reflect its diverse
constituency. This arrangement is designed to maintain the organization's accountability
to the low-income people it serves. SEASHA's reputation for assisting people in their self-help efforts has solidified
its reputation in the community. Many of the people who have participated in
SEASHA's various programs have gone on to run successful businesses, operate
small farms, or serve in public office. SEASHA has opened many doors for African-American
residents of Southeast Alabama. As many of its programs come of age, SEASHA is becoming a seasoned institution
in Southeast Alabama. While many of its agricultural programs are no longer
in operation, they have left a base of skills, technology and expertise in the
local community. Under the leadership of Clyde Windsor, the organization is
currently focusing on housing development, credit and loan services to minority
entrepreneurs, and industrial job creation. Although SEASHA has gone through
many changes over the years, its principle of self-development through self-help
continues to be its driving vision. South East Alabama Self-Help Association (SEASHA)Experimenting with Housing Development
Strengthening Minority Businesses
Participatory Decision-Making
Looking to the Future
P.O. Box 1080
Tuskegee, AL 36087
(334) 727-2340
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