October 8, 2024
For the third event in our series on housing, land, and the policies that shape our country, we turn our attention to the fraught history of Black land ownership in the United States.
In Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and The Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership, writer Brea Baker examines why Black people own less than 1% of rural land in the U.S.; explores the impact of land theft and violent displacement on perpetuating racial wealth gaps; and argues that the roots of justice start in the land itself. Who has rights on stolen land? Who owns what from stolen labor? To answer these questions, Baker confronts one of this nation’s first sins: stealing, hoarding, and commodifying land. Author and scholar Amy Godine (The Black Woods) joined Baker in conversation.
Featured Book
-
.
Rooted
By Brea Baker
To understand the contemporary racial wealth gap, we must first unpack the historic attacks on Indigenous and Black land ownership. From the moment that colonizers set foot on Virginian soil, a centuries-long war was waged, resulting in an existential dilemma: Who owns what on stolen land? Who owns what with stolen labor? To answer these questions, we must confront one of this nation’s first sins: stealing, hoarding, and commodifying the land.
Research suggests that between 1910 and 1997, Black Americans lost about 90% of their farmland. Land theft widened the racial wealth gap, privatized natural resources, and created a permanent barrier to access that should be a birthright for Black and Indigenous communities. Rooted traces the experiences of Brea Baker’s family history of devastating land loss in Kentucky and North Carolina, identifying such violence as the root of persistent inequality in this country. Ultimately, her grandparents’ commitment to Black land ownership resulted in the “Bakers Acres”—a family haven where they are sustained by the land, surrounded by love, and wholly free.
A testament to the Black farmers who dreamed of feeding, housing, and tending to their communities, Rooted bears witness to their commitment to freedom and reciprocal care for the land. By returning equity to a dispossessed people, we can heal both the land and our nation’s soul.
Featuring
-
Brea Baker
Brea Baker
Brea Baker has been working on the frontlines for over a decade. She believes deeply in nuanced storytelling and Black culture to drive change, and has commented on race, gender, and sexuality for Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Refinery29, Them, and more. Her writing has been featured in the anthologies Our History Has Always Been Contraband and No Justice, No Peace.
A Yale alumna, Brea has been recognized as a 2017 Glamour Woman of the Year, a 2019 i-D Up and Rising, and a 2023 Creative Capital awardee. She has spoken at the United Nations’ Girl Up Initiative, Yale Law School, the Youth 2 Youth Summit in Hong Kong, the Museum of City of New York, and more.
Photo Credit: Inari Briana
-
Amy Godine
Amy Godine
Moderator and independent scholar Amy Godine is the author of the 2023 history book, The Black Woods: Pursuing Racial Justice on the Adirondack Frontier (Cornell), about a radical abolitionist’s mid19th-century plan to boost Black land ownership and access to the ballot with gifts of wild land in the Adirondack mountains. A 2024 winner of the Spirit of John Brown Freedom Award, Godine has been writing and speaking about migratory, labor, Black and ethnic Adirondack history for three decades. Godine lives and works in Saratoga Springs.
