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Local Black farmers in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, one of the state’s largest Black American farming hubs, say they are being pushed out of their jobs by white South African farmworkers.
These laborers are entering the U.S. through the H-2A agricultural visa program, which allows U.S. employers to recruit foreign nationals to fill temporary agricultural jobs under certain conditions, according to The Clarion-Ledger.
The program legally requires farm owners to prove that no qualified U.S. workers are available before hiring foreign labor.
Although Mexican laborers have traditionally filled these vacancies, stricter immigration policies have led some farm owners to look toward white South Africans as an alternative.
However, residents who have lived in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, for generations see the decision as a form of racial discrimination that is actively damaging the state’s economy.
"White supremacy does not make economic sense,” Herman Johnson Jr., director of the Mound Bayou Museum of African American Culture and History, said in an interview with AJ+ on April 23. “If you bring people in from another country to work on your farm and you're paying them more, that means you have more going out from your pocket to them.”
According to the Southern African Agri Initiative, approximately 25,000 South Africans worked on American farms during the 2024–2025 agricultural season alone.
Mound Bayou, Mississippi, was founded in 1887 by freed slaves who owned and cultivated their own land, making it one of the first fully Black, self-governing towns in the United States.
Census data shows that Mound Bayou has a population of about 1,449 as of 2024, with 98.3% of residents being Black.
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