Black Family Land Trust

Although African-Americans had amassed 15 million acres of land in the South between 1865 and 1919, today 97% of those land assets have been lost. Enter the Black Family Land Trust, Inc., which works with black landowners and farmers to preserve their land assets.

Black-American culture has been tied to the land and agriculture for over 300 years. Research conducted in the Black Belt Region of Alabama is used to examine the importance of land, particularly the multigenerational ownership of land, on current farm participation and landholdings.

In 1910, rural African American farm families held between 16 million and 19 million acres of farmland, but the latest Census of Agriculture shows the amount of land held by African American farmers with active farms has dropped to just over 2.5 million acres.

The mission of the Heirs' Property Retention Coalition (HPRC) is to stem the tide of heirs' property land loss, particularly among low-income families of color in the southeast, so that such families can retain their ancestral land and maintain it as a sustainable asset for future generations.

The Center for Heirs' Property Preservation supports historically-underserved families by providing direct legal services, legal education and assistance to protect heirs' property.

Four Indigenous leaders share insights about the growing landback movement and what it means for the planet.