The Conversation

This Land Was Our Land

For the September cover story, Vann R. Newkirk II wrote about how nearly 1 million black farmers were robbed of their livelihood.

Mr. Newkirk’s poignant story about the precipitous loss of African American land sheds light on an issue that has affected—and devastated—generations of families throughout the South. The loss of this land, also called “heirs’ property,” has denied these families the most valuable and stable source of generational wealth.

However, we feel it is important to also illuminate the recent progress that has been made at the national level to address this issue. Together, we have led a bipartisan effort in the U.S. Senate over the past year to begin resolving the challenging bureaucratic and legal issues that have long plagued those Americans who have inherited land without a clear title. The 2018 Farm Bill included our legislation to make it easier for these landowners to receive a Department of Agriculture farm number—a crucial designation that unlocks federal resources. That bill also required a study of other issues that may be affecting the ability of heirs’-property owners to successfully operate farms and ranches.

Our home states of Alabama and South Carolina are widely considered ground zero for this issue. We’ve taken a good first step, but we have a lot more work to do to reverse this disturbing trend and protect this