Robert Swann (land trust pioneer)

Robert Swann (March 26, 1918 – January 13, 2003) was a community land trust pioneer, Georgist, and peace activist in the United States. He was born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio and died in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. According to his obituary, "Swann dedicated more than a half century of his life to non-violence, desegregation, appropriate technology, affordable housing, land trusts, community credit, worker cooperatives and local currency".

Swann was a conscientious objector during World War II and was imprisoned. In 1967, Swann signed a public statement declaring his intention to refuse to pay income taxes in protest against the U.S. war against Vietnam.

In 1969, Swann, Slater King, and Faye Bennett founded New Communities, Inc., a five thousand acre land trust in Lee County, Georgia in order to secure long term community land ownership by landless Southern blacks. In her 2004 E.F. Schumacher Lecture on Swann, Stephanie Mills said: "Bob Swann's innovation and formalization of the community land trust is one of his most important contributions to economic alternatives." She also suggests influences on Swann that led to the creation of the community land trust as "research in Israel on the Jewish National Fund's land trust, certainly Henry George's thinking about the evil consequences of land speculation, and Vinoba Bhave's Bhoodan or land-gift movement; and J. P. Narayan's Gramdan gift movement in India."

...
Wikipedia