Step 3

The Southern land plan
It’s relationship to the Investigate Your History Program

After the surveys are distributed, collected and the map compiled to show the families roots, the Southern Land Plan goes into action. 

What is the Southern Land Plan? 

The Southern Land Plan is the re-implementation of a Elder Council that consists of families that own land, or elder representatives that know the history of the land, in other words Griots or record keepers who collectively focus on developing social enterprises.

The word “Southern,” represents much of the heir property that African Americans pay taxes on, and do not put to use.  For example, according to a research paper, “Who owns the Land? A Racial and Ethnic Analysis of Current Agricultural and Ownership in the United States¹, he reported that, “the most surprising finding here is that African-Americans own almost 8 million acres, worth over 14 billion dollars…previous reports have been much lower, usually around 2 million acres.”  Dr. Gilbert mentioned, “the previous reports were the results of surveys compiled from data reflecting land ownership of land actually being farmed and not the total landownership of African Americans.  He continues that in reality, “nearly half of this land (currently owned by African Americans) in the U.S. was “heir property,” owned in undivided interests by several (often numerous) relatives, who frequently live out of state.” (Mitchell, 2001

 

While the discussion of how much land African Americans own is extremely important, it is equally or more important to discuss what we are doing with/ or could be doing with the land we own. 

The Southern Land Plan is an agenda item that enables a Council of Elders to study, preserve, and promote the common history shown on the Investigate Your History map.  

The Familyhood Connection, which has a mission to promote programs that bring the generations together. Through the Mo Better Food program, The Familyhood Connection, encourages families to consider connecting their lands to agricultural programs that enable Black communities to develop a self sufficient food system.

We will present actual cases of land owners and farmers looking for land in the “Social Enterprise Update  section.

¹Dr. Jess Gilbert from the Department of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison