PropertyProf Blog
Saturday, July 15, 2023
Heirs Property on the Big Screen: Gaining Ground: The Fight for Black Land (Film)
Friend of the blog, MacArthur Fellow, and reporter for the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, Thomas Mitchell (Boston College), recently shared a new, award-winning film titled Gaining Ground: The Fight for Black Land. Thomas is even featured as one of the main cast members! Check out the synopsis from the film’s official website:
In just a few decades after the end of enslavement, Black Americans were able to amass millions of acres of farmland. Today approximately 90% of that land is no longer in Black hands. Various factors have been employed to take Black land including violence, eminent domain and government discrimination. But it is a little-known issue, Heirs’ Property which has had a devastating effect on Black land ownership. Gaining Ground: The Fight for Black Land from Emmy Nominated Director Eternal Polk examines the causes, effects, and what is being done to fight the exploitation of this law and how landowners are reclaiming their agricultural legacy and creating paths to generational wealth.
The film was recently shown at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in mid-June and will also be shown at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival on August 6th.
For more info, check out coverage by BC Law here.
