As I write this I am sitting inside my camper in the waning hours of the afternoon. My side door is open and there is a light drizzle outside. I am surrounded by pecan orchards that were planted in the 1950’s and 60’s and can hear the breezes as they swish through the leaves. Birds are chirping everywhere and I have seen many cardinals flitting about over the course of the two days I’ve been here. This bonus feels extra special because cardinals are said to hold the spirits of our loved ones no longer with us, and I am imagining being surrounded by the love not only of Jay, but also my parents, grandparents and various other relatives and ancestors (there were a lot of cardinals…).

Why This Breadcrumb?

I had originally planned to include a relatively minor reference to Koinonia in an upcoming article I will be writing about my father and the work he did in his career. He had a connection to this place as a young pastor that is part of a larger story about him that I want to tell. As a 12 year old in 1969, I visited this place with my family on a summer vacation camping trip from Ohio to Florida and back. I had heard my father talk about Clarence Jordan’s work and they crossed paths somewhere along the way in their careers. We had recordings in our house of some of Jordan’s stories and sermons, as well as a copy of his Cotton Patch Gospel, and that’s about all I knew. My dad wanted to be sure to stop and see the farm while we were passing through Georgia and we did. I can’t remember much more, except that Clarence Jordan, the founder, was not there the day we stopped by.

When I knew I would be passing near this place on my spring 2024 road trip I decided I would make a pilgrimage to see it again. I had found them online some years ago, and have made small donations and purchases from their online store from time to time. I thought it might be fun to be here in person for a couple of days and meet some of the people and learn more about their mission and operations. After touring this farm and learning about its place in history, I decided that the farm and its legacy needs its own breadcrumb story. The significance of this place deserves a wider audience, although the members themselves who live and work here do not seek notoriety and are content to remain in the shadows (literally) of the more famous works of Jimmy Carter and Millard Fuller. Such is the nature of true humility and communal fellowship based on sharing and caring. It doesn’t need a grandstand. It doesn’t need recognition and accolades (although it has received both). The farm and its residents are enough. They do extraordinary work and are a model for the rest of us. That they still exist after all these years is a testament to their unwavering commitment to their core values. They live and breathe koinonia.

There have been many books written about Clarence Jordan and Koinonia Farm, and various compilations of his writings are readily available. There was even a musical made in the 1970’s, believe it or not. (the 70’s was truly a strange decade… just sayin’…) I am not going to try to replicate what’s out there. I highly recommend the excellent documentary, which includes quite a bit of historical footage and was produced by Clarence Jordan’s daughter. Well worth the time. And if you want to know more about what Jesus’ life might have looked like if he had been born in rural Georgia in the 20th century, you should definitely check out his Cotton Patch version of the gospels.

What I hope to do in this blog is to whet your appetite for learning more, and perhaps broaden your horizons just a bit about what’s possible in this polarized world we live in. While my perspective is extremely limited, it is, nevertheless, an up-close-and-personal look (albeit brief) at a model of communal living that has worked for over eighty years. Granted, I am simply passing through, and I don’t know much except what I have witnessed in a very small amount of time - a blink really. But I will leave in the morning with a better sense of the historical legacy of Clarence Jordan’s social justice vision and nonviolent philosophy (which, incidentally, predates Martin Luther King Jr.), and how that philosophy is being lived out today on the farm. So I decided to share a small piece of the story here.

The Beginning of an Experiment

Koinonia comes from the Greek and refers to a state of fellowship, dialog, community. Many Christians have adopted the word to describe practices and values grounded in unity, friendship, and partnership. Clarence Jordan used the word within his historical context of growing up and living in a segregated south. He began his experiment in communal living in 1942 when he and a friend bought some land just outside Americus, Georgia, in Sumter County.

Clarence had grown up in Georgia, and witnessed racial injustices at close range during his childhood and as he pursued his education. Along the way he began to question the racially segregated status quo that everyone else seemed to take for granted and accept. When he completed his education in the Baptist ministry, he couldn’t reconcile notions of Christianity that justified treating people unequally. He felt a strong call to live his life according to the biblical scriptures that preached simplicity, fellowship, caring, and sharing: koinonia. His wife Florence was all in as well, and they established their “demonstration plot” to prove that people could live and work and be educated side by side without regard to race or religion or class. His faith and values were firmly rooted in Christianity and the Bible, but the farm welcomed all who wanted to find fellowship there. Black families lived and worked side by side with the white families. The children played together. The wages for the workers at the farm were set at the same rate for both whites and Blacks, which was quite an innovation at the time and completely unheard of in the South. As a result of the higher wages for Black workers at Koinonia, the other white farmers in the area had to raise their wages as well in order to compete for the needed labor. They began to resent Clarence and suspect him of running a Communist enterprise (a big red flag for the county and harbinger of things to come).

Violent Resistance to Peaceful Coexistence

The first few years at the farm were fairly uneventful, but this began to change when societal norms shifted as racially oppressive practices and laws were challenged in the courts and tensions escalated. What was seen at first as a quirky, harmless farm community quickly turned into a perceived threat to the white-dominated Southern way of life that depended on the oppression of African Americans. When Brown vs. Board of Education destroyed the institution of segregated public schools, all hell broke loose throughout the south, and most particularly in Americus, Georgia. The peaceful coexistence of the white and Black families living and working at Koinonia was about to be challenged and attacked.

The 1950’s and 60’s were full of conflict and violence at Koinonia Farm. Crosses were burned on the property. Shots were fired into homes in drive-by shootings, terrorizing the children and their parents who lived there. Boycotts were enforced to prevent anyone from doing business with the farm. This left no market for the farm products and no way for the members to purchase what they needed to keep their operations running. A local business in town was firebombed when the owner sold goods to the families at the farm. Large Ku Klux Klan meetings took place in nearby Americus, culminating in large motorcades thirty cars long driving onto the property, with the Klansmen in full costume. The Koinonia farm stand on the side of the road was blown up and burned to the ground. They were forcibly kicked out of the local churches, with blockades at the doors to keep them out after a mixed-race group from Koinonia showed up one Sunday (after having been invited by one of the parishioners, by the way). The schools in Americus tried to prevent the white children growing up on the farm from attending, and they were ostracized and bullied mercilessly when those same schools were forced to provide them with an education. The Black children who were integrating the schools after 1954 were subjected to the same physical and emotional abuse that their counterparts were in other southern communities. Most of the Black families living at the farm during this period ended up leaving the area completely and moving north to New Jersey to try and start another Koinonia community there. They became part of the Great Migration fleeing terrorism in the South. The Eisenhower administration refused to send the National Guard or investigate what was going on at Koinonia, despite a letter to the administration from Clarence Jordan pleading for help. Instead, the Attorney General responded by saying it was a state problem, not a federal one, and then forwarded Clarence’s plea to the Georgia governor, who turned a blind eye to the terrorism happening in Sumter County. The repeated horror and traumas the Koinonia residents lived through during those years is unimaginable and difficult for me to fathom.

Resilience and Tenacity Wins

This turmoil and conflict went on for over a decade, but the threats and intimidation tactics could not destroy the farm or what it stood for. Through it all, Clarence Jordan was steadfast in his desire for peace, nonviolence and harmony. He did not compromise his principles and he did not move away. When the KKK offered to buy the property at one point (over 1400 acres at its height), Clarence refused. He had started something important and he was going to see it through. He never lost faith in humanity and he never wavered in his vision of what the world could become if only people listened to the true message of the Gospel and lived according to its principles.

Pecan trees were planted and a mail order business begun, which is still an important source of income today. In the late 1960’s the farm members began to reimagine the vision of what could be possible to improve the living conditions of the poor (mostly Black) families of rural Sumter County. A man named Millard Fuller settled at Koinonia and became close friends with Clarence. Kindred spirits, they forged a new vision of helping families build new houses for themselves. This vision, started under the Koinonia umbrella and called the Fund for Humanity, marked the beginning of the farm’s existence as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The new vision fostered the concept of cooperative management and ownership through various partnerships such as farming, industry, and housing. The Partnership Housing concept eventually formed a new nonprofit and went on to become the Habitat for Humanity that we know today, with its headquarters based in Americus. Ironic, no? after all that conflict of the 50’s and 60’s. At the time Habitat was forming in the 1970’s, the Koinonia community made a deliberate decision to remain locally focussed on the families living in Sumter County. Millard Fuller took his vision of Habitat to a national audience, got the attention of President Jimmy Carter and the rest, as they say, is history. Koinonia is very proud of what Habitat has become, while at the same time staying true to their own values rooted in the local community.

A Living Legacy

Clarence Jordan died in 1969 at the age of 57, just a few months after my family’s visit that summer. The 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s saw much transition at Koinonia as the farm and its members worked to figure out who they would become without the vision and leadership of Clarence. They went through a number of ups and downs, financial hardships, and tried different pathways and business models seeking financial sustainability and also remaining true to their values of community, hospitality and social justice. After deviating a bit from Clarence’s original vision, they eventually came full circle and returned to their roots as a communal, membership-based community of residents and staff that provides relationship, partnership, service to others, sharing of resources, and hospitality to those (like me) who pass through.

In partnership with their surrounding community, the farm members are involved in various social justice activities, including a prison ministry, a court-watching program and advocacy for defendants’ rights, hospitality for visiting groups, and fostering connections through monthly friendship circles.

I knew none of this when I decided to stop in. All I really knew was that Clarence Jordan was a special person in the eyes of my father. Given my father’s passion for ecumenism and community collaboration, I’m sure he was extremely interested in what was going on in Americus during those turbulent years and I know that he met Clarence Jordan somewhere along the way. I’m sure Clarence and his vision made a big impression on my dad.

Clarence was a true southerner, and loved his state and its cultural roots despite the racial conflicts and hate that surrounded him. He was a Greek scholar in addition to being a pastor and a farmer, and was a prolific writer and public speaker. He had a gentle but commanding presence, and a beautiful southern drawl that drew you in. I know this because I heard recordings of his voice on a record album we had in our house while I was growing up. Clarence famously translated the Gospels directly from the Greek into a southern-based folksy vernacular that made the Bible more personally relevant to the communities in Sumter County that he served. I particularly liked the way he told the stories as if the participants (and Jesus) lived in southern Georgia. The parable of the Good Samaritan, for example, became the story of a rich white man who was helped by a poor black man passing by.

I got a full tour of the main campus of the farm grounds. Sue, a member of the community (meaning that she lives there full time), was a wonderful tour guide and is passionate about her commitment to Koinonia. On the tour with us was Amon, who was driving from Florida to Minnesota with his brother-in-law. Amon insisted that they stop at the farm and I’m so glad they did. Turns out that Amon spent a year at the farm in 1958 and 59 when he was five years old. Although young, he still had many memories of his life there with his large family that he shared with us. Amon also identified his siblings and parents in several of the old pictures from that era that are on the walls in the various buildings and were also included in the documentary.

In Closing…

I want to end with the voice of Clarence Jordan. Although he died in 1969, I believe that his call for compassion and love in the face of hatred, and the personal story he uses to illustrate his point are totally relevant today. His wonderful, folksy personality also comes through clearly in his writing. (Note: Clarence lived and died according to his belief in the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament messages contained in the Gospels - understanding this will give readers a context for his writings and an appreciation of the language he uses to convey his values and philosophy. As someone who was raised in the Christian tradition but practices a different sort of spirituality as an adult, I believe the values expressed here and lived by Clarence and all the folks who come through Koinonia Farm are universal to the human condition, and don’t require a particular belief system to be relevant or meaningful).

Here is Clarence:

Jesus said it is not enough to limit your love to your own nation, your own race, your own group. You must respond with love even to those outside of it, and respond with love to those who hate you. This concept enables human beings to live together, not just as nations but as the human race. We are now at the stage of history where we will either take this step or perish. For we have learned with consummate skill how to destroy humankind. We have learned how to efficiently annihilate the human race. But somehow or other, we shrink with horror from the prospect, not of annihilation, but of reconciliation. We shall either be reconciled, we shall either love one another, or we shall perish.

…

I was at the Sumter County livestock sale sometime back, buying some calves that we needed at the farm. I bought them and was just about ready to leave when the town’s arch-segregationist came in. Well, I didn’t want to have a consultation with him at that moment. I kind of shrunk down behind everyone else and looked for a mouse hole, but I couldn’t find one. Finally, he came in and looked around and saw me. He came over and stood about two or three feet in front of me and yelled at the top of his voice, even above the noise of the auctioneer, “Here’s that old Jordan fellow, folks! We ain’t killed him yet, but we can kill him now. We got him here by himself!” I started looking for even a knothole to get through, but couldn’t find one. Then he looked at me and raised his voice again and said, “You ain’t nothing but a …” - he made a positive statement that on my mama’s side I had some canine ancestry. Now, down where I come from, when someone attributes to you that kind of a pedigree, you are supposed to respond. And I felt my fist getting in a position to respond. And then he took a deeper breath and called me something else, and I noticed that while he didn’t have any teeth he did have tonsils. And I thought this would be a nice time to perform a public tonsillectomy! But somehow God gave me the power to restrain myself. The little fellow kept calling me increasingly long names. I did not know there were that many species around until he called me those names. Well, he finally gave up and went outside.

There was a big, two-hundred-pound farmer sitting next to me. Every time the little fellow would call me one of those names, this farmer would grimace. Finally he said, “You know what?” And I thought he was getting ready to take up where the little fellow had just left off.

I said, “What?”

He said, “I want to know how come you didn’t hit that little fellow? You could have really whooped him, with one arm tied behind your back.”

I said, “I think that is a correct appraisal of the situation… My friend, there are two reasons why I didn’t hit him. One is purely selfish. If I had hit that little segregationist, everybody in this sale barn would have jumped on me and mopped up the floor with me, and I just didn’t want my wife married to a mop. But the real reason is that I am trying to be a follower of Jesus Christ, and he has taught me to love my enemies.” I said, “Now, while I must confess I had the minimum amount of love for this little fellow at the time, at least I did him no harm.”

And this old fellow said, “Is that what it means to be a Christian?”

I said, “Friend, that is not all it means, but that is a part of it.” We sat for a while, talking about being a Christian.

It is not enough merely to not harm our enemies. Somehow or another we must go beyond that. Love is not merely a weapon. It is not a strategy, and it may or may not work. To do good to those who hate you is such stupendous folly that it cannot be expected to work…

And yet it does work, if your motive is not to make it work.

Love through service to others. Joy through generous hospitality. Peace through reconciliation.

Not a bad way to live our lives. May we all aspire to the Vision of Koinonia Farm.

And a special thank you to my newfound friends at Koinonia. Your kindness, compassion, and open hospitality were memorable. I appreciate all of you and thank you for your gracious hosting of my visit and for inviting me to join you for dinner as part of your circle of friendship on my last night. You may see me again someday!

Resources:

Sources for some of the information included in this article include:

• https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional/map-georgia-lynchings-county-1880-1968/VgES641Na0mfErITv6jnBN/

• Downing, Frederick L., ed. (2022). The inconvenient gospel: A southern prophet tackles war, wealth, race, and religion. Plough Publishing House. (quote above on pages 59-63).