Things were quiet at Koinonia Farm last week. Not many tourists stopped at the newly reopened roadside stand on U.S. 19 because all the signs advertising it had been stolen. The people of Americus, Ga. (pop. 12,000) would like to get rid of Koinonia Farm; it is an embarrassment to some, a scandal to others. For it is a Christian experiment in racial equality.
A couple of young ministers from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. Ky. started it in 1942. Clarence Jordan was 30 and specializing in city mission work, and Martin England was 36, taking a refresher course after missionary duty in Burma. With $59 between them they took an option on a rundown 440-acre plot beside the highway in as prejudiced a part of Georgia as anyone could find. A Louisville builder donated the rest of the money they needed, and they called the place Koinonia (pronounced coy-no-nee-ah), Greek for fellowship. Now the fellowship farm is fighting for its life.
From 440 to 1,103. It was organized on three principles: 1) complete sharing of all things material and spiritual —"As we think of it," says Jordan, "each person receives a living while contributing a life"; 2) complete racial brotherhood; 3) complete pacifism. Husbands and wives work from 6:00 a.m. to evening worship at 6:00p.m. Younger children attend nursery or kindergarten school on the farm; older children go to regular segregated classes in the county.
Today there are 60 residents at Koinonia—45 whites and 15 Negroes. The 440 acres have grown to 1,103, with cash crops of peanuts, corn, cotton, cattle, hogs, goats and poultry.
Now there is another crop—trouble.
"Those Queer Nigger-Lovers." For years the people of Americus took little notice of "those crazy race mixers." But after the Supreme Court desegregation decision in 1954 there began to be ugly rumors: "Communist spies" were harbored there; "sex mixing" was practiced. When Clarence Jordan endorsed the applications of two Negroes for admission to Georgia State College of Business Administration, things began to happen. There were anonymous phone calls; the roadside signs were ripped down at night; retailers turned down Koinonia produce.
This spring the county health department obtained an injunction against the farm's racially mixed camp for children. A construction company refused to dredge the creek for swimming when they learned there was to be interracial bathing there; a crop-dusting firm refused to dust the farm's cotton. Then came dynamite—three sticks of it—which blew up the farm's roadside produce stand. After that there was an avalanche of insurance policy cancellations.
Some people in Americus were shocked. Others said: "I'll bet those queer nigger-lovers did it themselves. We ought to run them out of the county."