20-Acres in Norway

Newspaper: The Enterprise and Mountaineer (Greenville, SC)

Date: 2 April 1890

The "Race Problem" has been debated, argued, and fought about for a long, long time in the United States, and it appears we are in the middle of another heightened period that will be in the history books of tomorrow. This 1890 satire in a local Greenville newspaper revealed the underlying flaw in the Colonization Movement--where is home?

The back-to-Africa movement revived after Reconstruction due to increased racial violence from groups such as the KKK and the number of lynchings reaching and all-time high. There was a certain appeal to go somewhere without discrimination and violence and find true equality. Many of the white population also supported the Pan-African colonization as a "win-win" solution. However, the movement was plagued by hoaxes and frauds, plus the idea of going "home" to a strange land you were generations removed from was not appealing to people who considered America their home.