How Black Americans have been cheated out of land ownership – and the movement to reverse this

‘A lot of our elders don’t want to talk about their relationship to land because it’s painful.’ Photograph: Penguin Random House

America’s original superpower is the land itself – a sprawling patchwork of green pastures, potable waterways and seasons that are never entirely overripe. It’s no wonder white colonizers grabbed as much of this prime real estate as they could, disregarding the prevailing masses who well knew, from centuries of subsisting off the land, that it ultimately belongs to no one.

After the purges of war and slavery, Black Americans emerged with about 15m acres (6m hectares) of land in their possession. The current holdings figure stands at about 2m acres, less than 0.5% of US land, and the grip is slipping fast. “From the very moment Europeans touch this soil,” explains author Brea Baker, “it was all about extraction.”