Systemic
racism takes many forms, not the least of
which is land theft. Simply
put, Black people have lost a staggering
amount of property over the
years, land they owned, worked and
cultivated through hard work, made
a living from, supported their families with
and passed down to
generations coming after them. But in a
nation already built on the
stolen land, Black people have had their
property pulled from
underneath them. And it continues to this
day.
Since
the beginning of the 20th century, Black
farmers have lost millions
of acres of land - over 90% - as a result
of systemic racism,
government action, deception and threats
of violence and lynching. In
1920, there were 1
million Black farmers,
representing 14% of farmers and owning 15
million acres
of land. Since that time, Black farmers
lost 11 million acres, and
today they own only 1% of the farmland in
America. Chalk it up to
years of systemic discrimination by the
USDA - which treated Black
farmers unfairly and excluded them from
farm loans and programs, -
foreclosures, and the Great Migration of
Black folks from the South
to the urban centers of the North.
In
California, Los Angeles County has moved
to return a $75 million
oceanfront property that was seized from a
Black family by eminent
domain in 1924, part of a
racially-motivated plan by the city to
remove Black families from the area. Black
people had turned
Manhattan
Beach
to a popular resort where Black people
could get away. The Black
residents faced racial harassment and Ku
Klux Klan arson. Eventually,
the city condemned the area in 1924,
seized the land through eminent
domain - when the government takes private
property for public use
and compensates the owner - and claimed a
public park would be built
on the land.
This,
as the Gullah-Geechee
people of the Sea Islands of North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia
and Florida have lost most of their land
to development, luxury
resorts, golf courses and upscale enclaves
- and because of property
laws that disadvantage them. Facing
threats to their land from
climate change, hurricanes
and
rising sea levels, Black folks in the Sea
Islands and Lowcountry
are hoodwinked and bamboozled by
gentrification and corporate
interlopers. Families have held the ancestral
land
for generations through a
form of communal land ownership known as heirs’
property.
Under the system, numerous heirs may each
own a percentage share of a
parcel of land, without
a
will,
clear title or paperwork, with the
property passed down through oral
tradition. Developers and corporations may
entice individual family
members to sell their share, in effect
becoming a part-owner of the
land themselves and possibly forcing an
auction or sale of the land.
The
issue of land loss facing Gullah-Geechee
people was touched upon in
the recent Netflix docuseries High
on the Hog: How African American
Cuisine Transformed America,
which examines Black culinary history. In
the series, artist and
cultural preservationist Gabrielle
E.W.
Carter
shared that the state of North Carolina
seized part of her family
farm to build a highway, displacing her
relatives in the process.
When
one considers the racial wealth gap between
Black and white
households, part of the problem is land
ownership. In a capitalist
society, Black people have been unable to
build generational wealth
from the land that was stolen from them. A
crime is taking place
right before our eyes, and we must
understand this if we hope to find
a solution.
