by Nedra Owens-Redditt
Special to the Tri-State Defender

How many times have you heard your parents or grandparents say, “We once owned land over there!”  “Over there” could have been in Tennessee, Mississippi or Georgia – anywhere in the United States.

It doesn’t matter who you talk to – the stories are the same: African-American families who once had millions of acres of land, now gone. Today, it’s just a memory.  

What happened to their American Dream?

You remember the civil war story, and how it ended?

What was the effect of the civil war on real estate? The phrase “40 acres and a mule” referred to the promise and expectation of newly freed slaves that they would start their lives over as landholders. The promise was not kept.

In 1865, over 145 years ago, the U.S. Congress passed a law giving African Americans the legal right to own real estate. Only men had rights to acquire land and animals (“the mule”) to work the farm and build houses. Hard work and diligence paid off and they acquired millions of acres of land, passing their rights to future generations.  

African Americans owned almost no land in the United States after the civil war and peaked at 15 million acres by 1910. In that year, 14 percent of all U.S. farmers were African Americans. Of these 926,000 African-American farmers, all but 10,000 were in the South. In 1997, fewer than 20,000, or 1 percent of all farmers were African, and they owned only about two million acres. Where did the land go?

Farming is not exactly glamorous work. Young people are not entering the field to replace the increasingly elderly population of existing African-American farmers.

Physical acts of intimidation, from attacks by the Ku Klux Klan to the hostility of           white neighbors, as well as senseless murders of African-American landowners, to the public sale of family land, and illegal foreclosures decreased land ownership.

“Torn from the Land” documents the history of African-American land loss in the South.  These articles chronicle the violence, exploitation and injustice African-Americans in the South endured, losing over 24,000 acres of farm and timberland.

African-American elders understood the American dream – without the mule.  

Landownership issues today are:

Heir Property Ownership

When a person dies without a will, or other type of estate plan, state law controls who can rightfully inherit and how much they can inherit.  

Lack of Estate Planning

Estate planning is the process of arranging for the distribution and management of your estate after you die. An example of an estate plan is a will. It prepares you for the unexpected –  incompetence and death. It is estimated that approximately 80 percent do not have an estate plan.

Tax Sale

 A tax sale is the public sale of property to recoup the amount of unpaid taxes on land. One of the challenges of owning heir property is that you may not know who is paying the taxes, or if the property taxes are delinquent. Keep track of who pays the taxes, and whether they are current.

Partition sale

Partition sales are a common way African-American landowners have lost, and continue to lose their land. A partition sale is a court-ordered sale of land. With a partition sale, the highest bidder becomes the owner. The proceeds, however, are not distributed to the heirs until after the cost of conducting the sale, attorney fees and any other sale-related expenses are deducted.  

Voluntary sales

The frequency of land sales between African Americans is low. The 1980 Emergency Land Fund study found that when African Americans sell their land to someone outside their family, they tend to sell it to non-minorities.  “Economic stress, need to prevent foreclosure, and family pressure” are reasons.

Other contributors to land loss 

Eminent domain, illegal foreclosures, exploitation, trickery, and predatory lending should cease.

Inaccessibility to legal counsel

The need for attorneys to assist heir property owners, particularly those who wish to maintain ownership, is critical to curbing the crisis of African-American land loss in the United States.  Finding legal representation is challenging, expensive and time consuming.

Fast forward, it’s 2010!  Thank the United States Congress.  

African Americans you can still partake in the American Dream.

First time buyers, did you know that when you purchase your first home you can receive a homebuyer tax credit up to $8,000. With your tax credit, buy your own mule!

Contact Nedra Redditt, Real Estate Broker, Instructor, PRO Real Estate School, at 901-590-163, or visit www.prorealestateschool.org.