POLICY/ADVOCACY ACTION ALERT The mission of the Black Family Land Trust is to provide educational, technical and financial services to ensure, protect, and preserve African American land ownership.	Home About Us Our Work History Resources Photo Gallery Join Now HISTORY Black land loss has reached the crisis stage. While African-Americans amassed 15 million acres of land in the South between 1865 and 1919, by 1999 African-Americans owned a total of 7.7 million acres and only 2.5 million of those acres were farmland. In 1920, Black farmers numbered 925,708 (when 1 of 4 owned their own land) and controlled approximately 14 percent of the nation's farmland. Today, Black farmers have declined in number to approximately 18,000 and they control less than 1 percent of the nation's farmland. The decline in Black-owned land can, in part, be attributed to the Great Depression and the migration North of thousands of African-Americans throughout the South, in addition to the general decline of small farms in the agricultural industry. Other major contributing factors, however, are the historical racial discrimination in farm loan practices on the part of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) which continues today, and the fragmented nature of Black landownership, caused by what is called Heir Property. One researcher estimates that nearly 83 percent of African-Americans do not possess basic wills or estate plans. Major ownership problems arise when people pass without making provisions for their land, which causes the State to make those decisions. A final, major issue today is the pressure that development and suburban sprawl place on all rural and farming communities. Though the contributing factors are complex and varied, African-Americans need all possible support in their efforts to preserve landownership.
Black Family Land Trust · 411 W. Chapel Hill St. · 11th Floor, Suite 1104 · Durham, NC 27701 · 919.682.5969 · dannettesharpley@bflt.org