Panelists Discuss Future of Black Land Ownership in the U.S. at Harvard IOP Forum

Updated: December 4, 2023, at 3:43 a.m.

Panelists discussed the ongoing challenges and goals of Black land ownership in the United States at a forum co-hosted by the Harvard Institute of Politics and the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project Wednesday evening.

The discussion was moderated by Andrew W. Kahrl, a professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Virginia, and followed a screening of “Gaining Ground,” a movie about the history of land inherited by Black Americans. The panelists included P.J. Haynie, a farmer featured in the film, Johane J. Domersant, Global Human Resources Director at John Deere, and Eternal Polk, director of the movie.

During the event, Haynie, Domersant, and Polk discussed the future of Black land ownership in the U.S., highlighting the efforts to reclaim and protect agricultural land for Black farmers. In response to the exponential loss of agricultural land by Black farmers in the past century, the panelists emphasized the urgent need to identify and address systemic economic barriers.

““Social justice without economic justice is just chit chat,”” Haynie said, quoting Marc Howitz in the documentary.

The discussion centered on the issue of “heirs’ property,” which Domersant defined as “essentially a property that is owned by descendants of someone who did not have clear legal will.”

“So your heirs grow over time, and each heir to that piece of land that does not have clear title to it, now owns a fractional ownership of that land,” Domersant said. “If you have fractional ownership, you have the ability to parcel the land and have the ability to force a sale onto the land.”

“From generation to generation without having that access to a clear title, you can actually have your property sold to another party. It’s fractional ownership, and then therefore it forces the sale of the land and then you sort of lose that over time,” she added. “As a result of that involuntary land loss — as we call it — that type of farmland has dwindled.”

P.J. Haynie explained the historical “domino effect” that led to this fractional ownership.

“It’s not that Black farmers didn’t have to know how to farm,” he said. “It was because of tools in the toolbox and access to opportunities that our neighbors had that Black farmers didn’t have — access to lower interest, access to fertilizer, seed, and credit on time.”

Domersant highlighted the important role that coalitions and organizations like Legislation, Education, Advocacy, and Production Systems and the Federation of Southern Cooperatives play in supporting Black farmers and addressing these systematic barriers.

“We’re very intentional about making sure that we’re creating this virtuous ecosystem, with various organizations having this common interest around legislative work,” Domersant said. “Whether it’s on the Hill, whether there are other legal reforms that need to be done to eradicate heirs’ property across the country, making sure that we’re educating Black farmers and Black landowners.”

Polk said he wanted the film to convey the intangible impact — both emotional and generational — that the ownership of land has on a family. According to Polk, the loss of land is “losing something that's generational” and a “ripple effect that you can’t even quantify.”

Domersant said heirs’ property is “literally illuminating progeny, families upon families.”

“When you think about generational wealth around the country, generational wealth has been created through land ownership, right?” Domersant said. “That’s been the primary source of generational wealth for many other folks that we ourselves, Black communities, have not been able to access for those generations.”

Polk said he hopes the film “opens people’s eyes to seeing Black people in rural spaces.”

Haynie said that “growing up as a young Black kid driving tractors in rural America,” he had a “front row seat to inequity in agriculture.”

“The diversity in the hands that grow the food are not as diverse as the knees under the table that consume the food,” Haynie said. “And we got to shuffle this deck.”

Correction: December 4, 2023

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the forum was hosted by the Harvard Institute of Politics. In fact, it was co-hosted by the Harvard Institute of Politics and the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project.