African American Land Ownership And Black Wealth
Land ownership is essential for creating wealth in any given community. Most Americans created wealth from land ownership. When white European immigrants came from Europe to settle in the Americas they were promised land. In England they had been landless but in America the prospect of land ownership propelled migration. This policy was not available to African Americans which meant that African Americans were not able to build wealth like the white European American counterparts.
As a result of colonization, Queen of England Elizabeth II owns 6.6 billion acres according to Forbes Magazine. This is inherited, unearned and acquired mainly from colonialism and pilfering land owned by Africans. The Saudi King owns 547 million acres and owns the second most land in the world.
- Black Americans own just one percent of rural land in the US
- New York state has 58,000 farmers and only 139 are Black Americans
- Land is finite and land ownership is important for maintaining generation wealth. #BuyLand” or “#MakeFarmersBlackAgain
- White Americans own 98 percent of U.S. land amounting to 856 million acres with a total worth of over $1 trillion.
- Bill Gates has become the largest owner of farmland in the United States by quietly buying up massive plots across the country. He now owns 242,000 acres of farmland and nearly 27,000 acres of other land across 19 states.
- CNN founder Ted Turner alone owns over 2 million acres of land a quarter of what all black Americans combined own in rural land.
How African Americans lost land?
Violence and Domestic Terrorism. Places like Greenwood in Tulsa Oklahoma known as Black Wall Street was an economic engine where black people owned businesses and thrived economically. The white poorer citizens went and burned down the neighborhood to kill the economic prosperity among African Americans. Some of the land was land was stolen and African Americans were never compensated for the property destroyed.
The state and local governments created laws that created segregation in America starting from as far as the New Deal. Government policies were considered or created for white, middle-class, lower-middle-class families. Black people were pushed into projects in urban areas.
How Home Ownership Built Wealth
Most Americans created wealth from home ownership. Government policy prevented black people from building wealth through redlining and segregation in housing. According to a study highlighted on NPR African American incomes on are about 60% of average white incomes. But African American wealth is about 5% of white wealth.
The reason for the gap in wealth is attributed to federal housing policy in the United States of America. Most white Americans built their income from home ownership. African Americans were not able to build wealth like the white European American counterparts because of a policy known as Redlining.
Redlining
In 1934, the Federal Housing Administration introduced Redlining. Redlining was a policy where the agency refused to insure mortgages in and near African American neighborhoods. The white supremacist thinking was that land values would go down. African Americans were more willing to pay more for properties than whites were paying. This then drove the home values up in white neighborhoods, creating more wealth for European white Americans.
Highways Created to Separate Black from White Neighborhoods
Highways were built to separate African American from white neighborhoods. The Underwriting Manual of the Federal Housing Administration was explicit about this practice. They also built highways through black neighborhoods to decimate the black economic base. People are unlikely to cross a highway to make a purchase. This meant less customers for black owned businesses in black neighborhoods.
South Africa Land Ownership
Studies from the University of the Western Cape show that 67% of white people own land compared to Blacks who only own 15%. These numbers are alarming considering 2018 South African demographics that show Black South Africans make-up 80.2% of the population in contrast to whites who make up 8.4% of the country.
Land continues to be an important issue in many African countries. We have published several articles listed below which highlight those issues:
The Land Issue in Malawi and the Case for Reparations
How the Nama Lost Their Land to the Boers in Namibia
Laikipia: The Relics of Colonialism and Land Issues in Kenya
