ROOTED

A well-documented study of land ownership among Black Americans and the accompanying land theft.

Land ownership in America has long been associated with trauma, going back to the early days of settler colonialism, slavery, and genocide. Baker asks, “What does it mean to reclaim that tainted history and desecrated land, land rightfully associated with trauma, to become not only a home but also a vehicle for equity?” The author chronicles her grandparents’ early stewardship of land in North Carolina before they were compelled to move north (to New Jersey) with the Great Migration. Seeking to return to their roots, however, Baker’s family eventually came back to North Carolina in 2012, when she was a teenager, and bought 86 acres. The author examines this trend within a broader historical context, beginning with the enormous strides in Black land ownership after the Civil War, when one in five Black heads of household had become property owners, a number that grew “exponentially” from 1870 to 1890. However, with Black ownership came the inevitable “whitewash.” Baker describes the (re)rise of white supremacy in places like Wilmington, where, in 1898, violence broke out, leading to voter intimidation and destruction of Black businesses. The violence forced Black citizens to flee, relinquishing ownership of land to whites. The author notes that the chaos in Wilmington created a “blueprint” for seizing Black property in subsequent riots in Tulsa and Atlanta. The Great Migration lured Black Americans northward to escape, yet by leaving the land, they grew increasingly impoverished. Baker investigates the “complicity” of the Department of Agriculture in allowing Black land theft, and she considers how Black and Indigenous groups have shared land trauma and worked together; the issue of reparations; and Hazel Johnson and the rise of the environmental justice movement.

A passionate, engaging combination of history, memoir, and examination of income inequality.