I was born to white parents in 1947 and grew up in an almost entirely white region of northeast Iowa. Until age four I did not know there was any skin tone except my own. My family did not yet own a television. I had been to one Gene Autry film with my parents. Only white people were depicted in that film. My parents read the Farm Journal and Wallace’s Farmer. Only pictures of white people were featured on their pages.
In 1963, I was sent to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines as part of the county 4-H livestock judging team. As I was wandered the midway, I heard singing coming from a sideshow tent. After paying the 25¢ admission charge, it was the first time I saw a black individual in person. It was a 13 year old blind black performer named Stevie Wonder.
Why was (and is) rural Iowa almost universally white? Iowa was “ethnically cleansed” of its native inhabitants by U.S. governmental policy in the first half of the 19th century.” In 1839, the Iowa Territorial Legislature enacted a “black code” setting forth three hurdles to the settlement of African-Americans. First, “Negroes and mulattos” could not reside in Iowa without a certificate that he or she was free from any court in the United States and, second, posted a $500 bond. That $500 bond has a current value of $13,860.05. Finally, after producing the court certificate and depositing the bond, the Board of County Commissioners had to approve their residency. Allegedly this ensured that the “Negro” person had good behavior, would not commit any crime, or become a charge to the county.
After Iowa became a state, the Iowa legislature reaffirmed this black code in 1851. No such procedure was required of white settlers from Europe or the Eastern U.S., thereby creating white privilege in rural Iowa.
During the 1840’s and 1850’s, Iowa land was sold by the U.S. government for only $1.25 per acre with a minimum purchase of 40 acres. Forty acres could be purchased for a total cost of $50 – which has a current value of $1,652.54, far less than the bond required under Iowa’s black code.
Iowa’s farmland was purchased by white U.S. migrants and European immigrants who flooded into the state to fill the empty “ethnically cleansed” land.
After the Civil War ended “Negroes and mulattoes” were free to reside in Iowa, but rural Iowa had already been sold to white settlers. Because of the 1839 and 1851 legislation establishing historic white privilege, rural Iowa was already white.
