Building A Pro-Black World

How Philanthropy Can Truly Support Land Justice for Black Communities

Savi Horne and Dr. Jasmine Ratliff

The question of land (and its loss) has been prominent throughout African American history. After the US Civil War, many formerly enslaved Black people made tremendous efforts to acquire land. Even though the Union promise of “40 acres and a mule” was not honored, African Americans bought land where they could. By 1910,¹ Black farmers owned somewhere about 14% of all US farmland—with estimates of land holdings exceeding 15 million acres.²

These gains have since been largely reversed. Nearly 12 million acres³ of Black‐owned land has been lost in the United States over the last century. In Mississippi alone, between 1950 and 1964, Black farmers lost nearly 800,000 acres,⁴ the equivalent of a $3.7 billion loss today.

How did this dispossession occur? Via the efforts of private and public actors, programs, and policies, including discriminatory loan programs, market forces, intimidation, and terrorism. Today, many Black farmers who retain land ownership face foreclosures or lawsuits from white farmers, among other challenges.⁵ In the face of so much loss and opposition, asset reallocation can be a powerful tool for achieving self‐determination for Black farmers and Black agricultural communities.

It is too late to restore all the land from which Black farmers have been dispossessed. But if philanthropy focused on asset reallocation—that is, the direct transfer of real estate ...