COURSE & resources

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PROTECT YOUR LAND

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SAVE YOUR LEGACY

• PROTECT YOUR LAND • SAVE YOUR LEGACY

tHIS IS OUR land | DIGITAL COURSE

History and Impacts of Black Land Loss and the Promise of the American Dream 

An online course designed to equip you with wealth building strategies and the knowledge on how to protect your land and assets for generations to come. Explore the complex history of Black land dispossession, its lasting impacts on communities, and strategies for addressing the issue.

COURSE MODULES

  • Lesson 1: Overview of the course and its goals

    Lesson 2: Key terms and concepts

    Lesson 3: Why we focus on Black land dispossession

  • Lesson 1: About the Family

    Lesson 2: A Look at Their Family Tree

  • Lesson 1: Introduction to Historical Foundations of Dispossession

    Lesson 2: The Freedman’s Bureau - Freedmen’s Bureau Acts of 1865 and 1866

    Lesson 3: What happened to the “40 Acres and a Mule”?

    Lesson 4: General Sherman's Special Field Orders 15

    Lesson 5: What happened after the reversal of Special Field Orders 15

    Lesson 6: PBS: The Truth Behind ’40 Acres and a Mule’

    Lesson 7: Forced Land Theft

  • Lesson 1: Introduction to Socioeconomic Impacts of Land Loss

    Lesson 2: Why is Land Ownership So Important?

    Lesson 3: Land Discrimination

    Lesson 4: How Does Land Loss Impact Racial Wealth Disparities

COURSE MODULES

  • Lesson 1: Introduction to the legal side of land theft

    Lesson 2: Examination of discriminatory laws and policies used to dispossess land

    Lesson 3: The Legacy of Discriminatory Land and Housing Policies in the U.S.

    Lesson 4: Stories of Dispossession

  • Lesson 1: Introduction to Strategies for Addressing Dispossession

    Lesson 2: Resources for at-risk landowners

    Lesson 3: Estate Planning

    Lesson 4: Land as a tool to build wealth

    Lesson 5: Leaving a Legacy

  • Lesson 1: Introduction to Take Action

    Lesson 2: Protect You and Your Family’s Future

    Lesson 3: Learn more about The Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA)

    Lesson 4: Call, Write and Share

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

  • ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

  • CAFS offers degrees and courses with a unique systems-based focus on food and agricultural law and policy.

  • BFLT is one of the nation’s only conservation land trust dedicated to the preservation and protection of African-American and other historically underserved landowners assets.

  • The Land Loss Prevention Project was founded in 1982 by the North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers to curtail epidemic losses of Black owned land in North Carolina.

  • ACTEC is a nonprofit association of lawyers and law professors skilled and experienced in the preparation of wills and trusts; estate planning; and probate procedure and administration of trusts and estates of decedents, minors and incompetents.

  • HeirShares web-based and native app portals empower families to coordinate and manage shared heirs’ property. At the core of the portal is a family tree builder that families and/or their legal representatives fill out, starting with information about the original owner of the inherited property.

  • The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund is a 56-year-old regional cooperative and rural economic development organization serving a membership of Black farmers, landowners, cooperatives, and other low-income rural people in the South with coop development, land retention, and advocacy.​

  • The Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that protects heirs’ property and promotes its sustainable use to provide increased economic benefit to historically under-served families.