A New Front in Reparations: Seeking the Return of Lost Family Land

For much of their lives, the Jones siblings had passed by a parking lot on the campus of the University of Alabama in Huntsville without giving it much thought. Then one day, a relative casually pointed to the spot and said she thought it was once owned by their ancestors, who had farmed the land since the 1870s.

The Joneses want it back.

“For our family and others, it’s not just about the taking of the land, it’s about the taking of our ability to build wealth,” said Michael Jones, 63, the youngest of five brothers and sisters.

African American families across the country — particularly in the South — are pushing for the return of land they say was taken in government seizures, an emerging attempt to provide economic restoration for the long saga of Black land loss and deprived inheritances.

Carrying passed-down family stories, descendants are searching for aging deeds and scouring public records to try to prove past ownership of properties that are now the sites of businesses, college dormitories and in the case of the Joneses, a parking lot for a campus business administration building.

They want the land or to be paid current market value. In some cases, families are asking for acknowledgment of the harm done as a way to return their history to public memory.

A national organization dedicated to helping Black families recover lost land has received about 700 claims to properties since 2021. One real estate lawyer has heard from hundreds of people looking for assistance. Black property loss and the case for reparations, long the realm of academics, has now spilled into politics as the nation debates compensation for the descendants of those enslaved in the United States.

“We are talking about the loss of heritage and history and culture,” said Thomas W. Mitchell, a law professor and director of the Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights at Boston College Law School. “You are talking about a fundamental hit in terms of economic mobility and generational wealth.”

Generally, the claims are separate from broader public efforts at reparations being considered by states, cities and some universities. In some individual claims, families are appealing directly to the entities that now possess the land. Only a very few such cases have gotten traction; most are in the early stages and could take years to progress, if they do at all.

For many Black families, the loss of property stripped by deceit, violence or using eminent domain — and often sold below market prices — was relegated to bittersweet memories and cautionary tales.

Scholars say the use of eminent domain was often racially motivated and invoked disproportionately in minority and poor communities. One study showed that between 1949 and 1973, 2,532 eminent domain projects in 992 cities displaced one million people — two-thirds of them African American.

For decades, families talked about the land that their ancestors owned as an infuriating, yet unsurprising personal history, rather than a winnable modern-day fight.

Over the years, a few families fought to get their land back. But as talk of racial justice has taken a more concrete form in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, more families are seeking the return of what was once their land.

A California panel last month recommended billions in reparations for African American families in the state. San Francisco is considering $5 million in cash payments as a way to bring back Black residents harmed by housing policies.

Michael Jones and his siblings were in their hometown Huntsville, Ala., when they learned the return of Bruce’s Beach had been finalized. They had been following the story with the tiniest bits of cautious hope. To them, much of Bruce’s story mirrored their own history with the land their family had used to farm cotton and corn.

Mr. Jones said his research shows that the land was seized in 1962 from his parents by local government using eminent domain — authority that allows governments to seize properties in the interest of public use, often to clear the way for freeways, parks and development. The state law calls for property owners to be paid “just compensation.”

The Jones siblings, who began researching their family’s history in 1995, say their father turned down an offer to purchase his 10-acre plot, and in 1954, the city condemned the property in order to gain access to a water source, forcing the family to move. In the years that followed, documents appear to show their parents, Willie and Lola Jones, signed the deed over to the chief of the Huntsville Land Acquisition office. The Joneses say the transaction was fraudulent because their father could not read or write and could not have signed the documents.

The Jones’s plot was later sold to the University of Alabama in Huntsville. A university representative declined to comment. “The University of Alabama in Huntsville does not make public comments on particular matters such as this,” said Kristina L. Hendrix, the university’s vice president for strategic communications.

A City of Huntsville representative said it learned about the Jones’s claim through media reports but had not been approached by the family or an organization called Where Is My Land that helps African American families trying to reclaim lost land. “Our legal team is aware, and it would be inappropriate for the City of Huntsville to publicly comment on the matter at this time,” said Kelly Schrimsher, the communication director.

Last year, a group of scholars estimated the loss of agricultural land once owned by Black families. The research showed that farmers, the largest group of Black landowners, lost more than 90 percent of the 16 million acres they owned in 1910, based largely on discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The present compounded value of the land loss came to about $326 billion from 1920 to 1997, the study said.

An Associated Press investigation published in 2001 found hundreds of Black landowners lost more than 24,000 acres — worth tens of millions in today’s dollars — through unethical legal tactics and racial violence.

George Fatheree III, a lawyer who represented the Bruce family, said since his involvement with the case became public, he has been contacted almost every day by a Black family who shares a similar story. He said the calls or emails recount their personal history, something like, “We had 100 acres of farmland in Texas, and the sheriff came with dogs and guns and said, ‘If we didn’t leave town, there would be trouble.’ So we lost everything.”

Researchers and lawyers say cases face a mountain of obstacles, from the passage of time to gaps in public records.

So far, Where Is My Land has determined about 240 of the 700 claims submitted seem promising, and it will be asking families to submit more information, lead researcher Kamala Miller-Lester said. Within that number, about 45 are considered active cases — including the Jones siblings’ claim — meaning the documentation has been vetted by Where Is My Land and the group is working with the family and its lawyers.

In Georgia, Black families settled near the University of Georgia in Athens in the early 1900s in Linnentown, then a vibrant, close-knit neighborhood with about 50 homeowners. As part of an urban renewal project, the city of Athens and the state Board of Regents displaced the families to make way for three dormitories on campus. By the mid-1960s, the community was gone. Residents were paid as little as $1,450 for their properties. A University of Georgia analysis said homeowners received “only 56 percent of the amount they would have received if their properties had valued similarly to those outside of Linnentown.”

“We had masons, construction workers, electricians and carpenters, even a professional baseball player living in Linnentown. It was one big village,” said Hattie Thomas Whitehead, 74, a fourth-generation descendant of Linnentown. “We had Easter egg hunts and Bible study on Wednesday nights. We made a playground by the creek.”

Ms. Whitehead and the few remaining descendants formed a group to demand redress from the county and the university. They asked for $5 million in reparations — split between Athens-Clarke County and the college — along with memorial markers and the renaming of a building on the campus.

Greg Trevor, a spokesman for the University of Georgia, said the decision on compensation rested with the Board of Regents, which oversees of the University System of Georgia, which purchased the land. Neither the board nor the office of Governor Brian Kemp responded to requests for comment.

Mr. Trevor said the university has met with Linnentown descendants and had offered to include the story of Linnentown in an oral history project maintained by University of Georgia Libraries.

In 2021, Kelly Girtz, the mayor of Athens, issued a general “proclamation of apology” for urban renewal projects in the city. The Athens-Clarke County Commission later approved a resolution specifically acknowledging the destruction of Linnentown and committed $2.5 million to fund affordable housing programs and a race and justice center. State law prohibits direct payments to private individuals.

The resolution stated the neighborhood was systematically destroyed through intimidation, controlled fires, “tokenized” Black representation and “paternalistic” relocation policies.

“Linnentown,” the resolution said, “was effectively erased without a trace by the City of Athens and the University System of Georgia.”