- It is a documented fact that the primary way that Americans build wealth is through home ownership or land ownership.

African-Americans have been systemically denied that opportunity.

Since Reconstruction, the government has broken promises to minorities, the promise to provide every freed slave with 40 acres and a mule or the promise of participating in the GI Bill, which was denied to African-Americans.

Additionally, things like redlining, which was designed by the government and the banks to enact illegally discriminatory practices in which mortgage lenders denied loans or an insurance provider restricted services to certain areas of a community because of the racial characteristics of the applicants, the Great Land Robbery, how one million black families had been ripped from their farms in the South.

The truth is that systemic and institutional racism that America has practiced over the years has hindered African-Americans from building wealth.

Though black people make up nearly 13% of the United States population, they hold less than 3% of the nation's total wealth.

The median family wealth for white people is $171,000, compared with just $17,000 for black people.

It is worse on the margins.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, 19% of black households have zero or negative net worth.

Just 9% of white families are that poor.

According to a recent report in The Guardian, by 2053, the median wealth of black Americans will fall to zero if things don't change.

My guest today is Ashanti Martin.

She is the co-founder and marketing lead at Where Is My Land, an organization that helps Black Americans discover connections to stolen land through research, data and technology, while assisting them to reclaim stolen land and secure restitution through traditional advocacy and digital amplification.

Welcome to Courageous Conversations.

I'm your host, Pastor Phillip Davis.

I'll be right back with Ashanti Martin.

Ashanti, I'd like to just welcome you to Courageous Conversations.

I'm so excited to be able to have this conversation.

Since I read about the work that your organization has been doing, I couldn't wait to connect with you guys and allow you to share your story, so thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you so much for having me.

I'm really looking forward to getting the word out about what we're doing.

- Wonderful.

Well, let's jump right in.

Tell us about Where Is My Land and what prompted this call to action.

- So we got started as an organization in July of 2021, so we're not even a year old.

And the genesis of our organization stemmed from the work that Kavon Ward did in Manhattan Beach, California.

She started a grassroots organization called Justice for Bruce's Beach that was critical and really the driving force behind what is believed to be the first return of land formerly owned by black Americans to their descendants.

Briefly, for those in your audience who may not be familiar with the case, Bruce's Beach Resort was a business started in the early 1900s by Willa and Charles Bruce.

They started it out as a small stand on the beach in Manhattan Beach, just selling snacks.

And it quickly became a destination for black residents and people really from not just California, but other parts of the country, to visit as one of the few beaches where blacks were welcome or permitted.

Of course, over time, over the years, there was resistance in Manhattan Beach, as there still is, truthfully, 100 years later in many respects.

But there was resistance, and Willa and Charles Bruce, them and their business were subject to racial harassment.

They had burning mattresses around their property.

People in the town set up parking restrictions, so that people would have to walk undue distances to actually get to the beach and finally relax.

Tires were slashed, which is... You know, no one wants their tire slashed today, but in the 1920s, you can imagine the serious inconvenience, to say the least, that caused.

So after all of this, really, terrorism and violence against them, Willa and Charles held out.

But the city of Manhattan Beach eventually condemned the property via eminent domain.

Unfortunately, the property sat unused for decades, until the middle of the century, when there was pressure on the city to make good on what they said was a necessary public use.

And so they made a park.

For years, people in Manhattan Beach knew about the history of the resort, and mid-2000s, you know, 2005 or so, it was renamed Bruce's Beach Park.

And so it is important to note that the actual park...

The Bruce family's property was two parcels right on the shore, on the coast, which are now worth about $70 million.

- 70 million?

Wow!

- Yes.

Yes, they were...

They paid about $1,200 for the land and were given a sum that clearly is not anywhere approaching the wealth that they would have been able to build over the course of that century.

So it's really...

There was a lot lost, and there was also a lot of heartbreak.

And Willa and Charles Bruce left their business that had been booming.

It started out from a small stand and turned into a building with locker rooms and a restaurant and banquet hall.

And they left that to go work for other people.

- Yeah, if I can, I just kind of want to amplify this a little bit because, so often, people are not made aware of this type of thing.

So an African-American family in the early 1900s, probably 35 years after the end of slavery, right, you know, are moving forward and progressing.

They have an opportunity to build a business which then becomes attractive to other African-Americans.

And the white population of the city got upset because they were doing what is supposed to be the American dream.

And as opposed to allowing them to build, you know, they begin to utilize terroristic tactics to steal the land from them, ultimately, and to move the black folks.

Am I understanding correctly that there is also a lawsuit out there standing for the generational wealth that may have been lost over the time for Bruce's Beach?

Are you aware of that?

- I can't speak to that.

Yeah, so it's... You know, the genesis of Where Is My Land essentially stemmed from the efforts and the success of Justice For Bruce's Beach and Kavon Ward.

And now, we're kind of focused, moving forward, on doing this around the country.

- That's great.

So the property was returned back to the family.

And were they given money?

Or was it just that the deed of the property was given back to them?

In early October, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill, Senate Bill 796, from the state legislature that would allow the transfer of the land from Los Angeles County to the Bruce family.

So as I understand it, there are a lot of issues that need to be working out, but that is taking place.

- That's amazing.

Have there been other stories of families that you guys have been able to help or, because you're so new, still kind of building a repertoire of people that you were able to connect with?

- Well, I think the important thing for folks to understand is that this is something that, up until last year, has never been done.

What took place last year and what Kavon was able to accomplish was truly groundbreaking.

There were a lot of pieces in place that made it... ..that set the stage for it to be successful.

We don't anticipate that every case we take on is going to go that smoothly, but we also don't anticipate that they're all going to be hard.

I mean, I think there are going to be some that are just very clear-cut instances of unjust theft of property due to racism.

So we have... To answer your question, though, we have received more than 200 requests, claims from families that we believe to be very credible about the theft of their land spanning the country.

We just had coverage in USA Today and on NBC News of the story of Jonathan Burgess and his ancestors.

One of his ancestors was an enslaved man and traveled to California during the Gold Rush, with his enslaver, was able to, you know, acquire property.

His family built a church.

They were farmers, and eventually the state of California took that land from them, and they have very little to show for it.

I think the important part to note with this case is that Jonathan and his brother, Matthew, they're both very respected.

One is a police officer, one is a firefighter, and they have a very successful food and beverage service business.

So they're entrepreneurs, they're inventors.

They are doing everything right, but they still have so little to show for what their ancestors were able to achieve, compared with some of the white landowners from that same area in Coloma, California.

So... - Yeah, I think that a lot of people don't understand the lasting legacy of racist practices that have robbed the transfer of wealth generationally.

Right?

So, you know, Grandpa owns a house, he passes it down to a son, who passes it down to his son, and the equity and the value of the home then becomes part and parcel of, you know, their generational wealth.

And because institutions and the government has worked very hard to ensure that African-Americans are not building wealth, your organization becomes so relevant and important just to highlight and then acquire some of those lands that have been stolen.

Thinking about the gentleman you were just talking about in California, in spite of all of that, right, they have still been able to arise and to live out their dream.

How is the case going?

And is it progressing?

- Well, so Jonathan Burgess has been researching his case, his family and the land for several years before we connected with him.

When we did, it was really to just lend him the support and amplification.

One of the things that we are seeing is that many of these families have been dutifully keeping records, trying to find information, trying to get legal support and representation to get their land back, but they're very much ignored by people up and down the line, you know, people whose job is to keep records, lawyers who feel that it's not worth taking their case on because of statute of limitations or even just, you know, political, municipal level situations.

So what people like John Burgess and these 200 families need is for somebody to say, "No, this is not OK. "And, no, we're not going to stay quiet about it."

Because as you mentioned, you know, even in the case, the example you gave of, like, you know, your grandfather or your great-grandfather buys a home and then passes it down and you build equity.

That's important.

And we want even individual homes that were stolen unjustly from black people to be reclaimed.

But we're talking about swaths of land in colonial California.

Jonathan Burgess' great-grandfather, there were about 80 acres of land with orchards that, currently, there are families, white families, who are operating orchards out there, the same type of land, and they're making, you know, a lot of money.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah, we have a case in Texas, actually, in our USA Today story.

It's the story of the Alexander Farm, which is a historic black farm in Travis County, Texas, outside of Austin.

And the man who started it all was also formerly enslaved, but became a very celebrated horse breeder and racer.

And their land was... Part of it was seized by eminent domain in the 1960s.

They have a family cemetery on the property that has been, you know, not treated with the respect that one would want a family cemetery to be treated.

And the Texas Department of Transportation is currently trying to take another part of their land to build a highway.

And we also have a case out in Connecticut that... You know, in a state like Connecticut, where it's not really the first place one thinks... - Supposed to be progressive, right?

Absolutely.

- Exactly.

Exactly.

And we have a family who lost about 30 acres of land out in Connecticut.

She was one of the first residents of this town, Trumbull, Connecticut, to really form the town, lost 30 acres.

So we're talking about, you know, not just homes.

We're talking about significant parcels of land that could have reaped incredible economic benefit.

And so it's really to me, I think, especially in 2022, when you see the generational wealth gap, you see the state of, you know, our people and our economic empowerment or disenfranchisement, it really hurts to know that it's not only because we were shut out from opportunities, like you mentioned in your introduction, it's because resources were forcibly and violently taken from us.

And so I don't think that we can sit back and just accept that anymore.

- All right.

No, that's...

I mean, just thinking about the examples that you gave, and you said you have 200 inquiries, which means that this spans, as you said, spans the country.

And people, when you talk about this kind of stuff, think, "Oh, that was so long ago."

I think you said recently that one was just taken in the 1960s, right?

And so this is not something that is 100-200 years ago, this has been ongoing.

And the problem is that it hasn't been raised, and your organization is doing all that you can to help uplift your people by really speaking to these atrocities, because these are atrocities.

We can't just see, "It just happened to this one individual "or a few individuals."

This happened systematically, historically, you know, from Reconstruction all the way up until the current day.

We talked a little bit about redlining and how that has impacted our economics as well.

Well, tell me a little bit about the team.

Who's working with you, with your organization?

And how many folks are on the team?

- Yeah, so we started out... Kavon and I connected last April, in 2021.

And so for, really, all of 2021, we were working, you know, for free, on a volunteer basis.

We've been able to, as of January 2022, we now have a team of three full-time and three part-time folks.

So we... Funding is crucial.

It's very critical for us right now.

Without significant funding, we won't be able to continue this work.

And we know just from Bruce's Beach that that... Kavon started that Juneteenth of 2020 and the land was returned in October 2021.

And that was.... You know, we consider that pretty quick.

You know, so a lot of cases, we need to be doing this for the long haul.

But we are able now to... We have a team of... Kavon is the co-founder and advocacy lead.

I am the co-founder and marketing lead.

We have a research lead.

Her name is Kamala Miller-Lester, an operations lead named Michelle Marshall.

And so... And we have a few volunteers who are helping us and a couple of part-time folks as well.

So we've had that in place for just about a month, a month and a half.

And so we really feel like now that we have that in place, we can start to kick things into a bit of a higher gear.

But of course, the more publicity we get, and we appreciate every single opportunity to especially talk to an audience like yours, that the work keeps coming in.

But I will just say, though, that I highly encourage everyone to go to our website, whereismyland.org, click on "Register Your Land" and tell us as much as you possibly can about land that you know or may know that has been lost and stolen from your family.

Because even in instances where maybe we won't be able to do anything, it's really critical, one, for us to be able to talk about the scope of this problem and, two, to give voice and to give a platform to some of these folks, even if they may have lost all hope.

And if we're in a position to tell their story, then we want to do that.

So I strongly encourage people to go there and to tell your family and friends as well, whereismyland.org/register?

- Yeah, I think that a lot of people don't understand that the laws that were created during Jim Crow many a times prohibited, you know, black folks from even passing the land if they owned it, right?

It prohibited it from passing land.

I think about also issues like Black Wall Street, right, where it was a bustling community that got decimated by the terror of the white community and those businesses, and potentially that land could have been lost as well, if they owned the land where their businesses were operating.

What are some other examples that you can share with our audience that you have experienced while doing this work?

- Well, I mean, that's a great point, right?

I mean, last year, at the 100th year commemoration of the Tulsa Massacre, we started learning about other racial massacres around the country, and it does force the question of what... Not only we know the loss of life or learning, but what about the loss of wealth and the loss of property and businesses in every single one of those instances of violence?

So, I mean, my hope is that we will come across someone who, you know, wants to start to reclaim some of that.

But it really, it just drives home the scope and the depth of the issue, is that these things, you know... Land was stolen through a variety of ways, eminent domain a big one, fraud, forgery, deception, coercion and, of course, violence and murder.

I can tell you one... One example is very similar to, I think, Tulsa, except, like you mentioned, very much current.

This land taking occurred in 1982 in Cleveland.

So, you know, there was a man named Winston Willis who was a very colorful entrepreneur and he was very outspoken, but he grew up...

He lived in Cleveland.

And once Cleveland saw a lot of white flight, after racial "riots" in the 1960s, in the 1970s, he started purchasing vacant properties in the area of 105th and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, and began building essentially what was called a Black Disneyland.

It was a center of commerce for black folks in Cleveland.

He had arcades, movie theaters, book stores, taverns, jazz club, restaurants, but absolutely faced a lot of resistance and harassment from the city of Cleveland, aided by the Cleveland Police Department.

So over time, you know, eventually, in 1982, he was arrested and wrongfully imprisoned on charges of a bad check.

And while he was being held for about ten or 12 days, the city of Cleveland came through with bulldozers and destroyed his buildings.

So currently...

They made way for the construction of a new building.

It's part of the Cleveland Clinic... ..one of the world's foremost hospitals, health care systems.

So that's what stands on the land now, and there really is not any marker or mention or remembrance of what had been there.

And that's really another tragedy, is that as we go through these spaces in our lives and we think...

If we look at what's there now, we don't know a lot about what was there, and we certainly don't know a lot about the role black people had in creating community and commerce for ourselves.

So it's really just been erased, and that's a big... Not only do we want to help get land back and get restitution for folks, we want to, you know, make sure that black history is not just in February.

And we need to understand the impact that we've had on cities across this country.

- Absolutely.

You know, I read somewhere that white fragility or white supremacy is not driven by black existence.

It's driven by black progress.

And all throughout our history, it is when African-Americans start striving and doing for themselves... And this example that you just gave, that means collusion between the police, the government, right?

It means collusion between the community and the community leaders to decimate this community that has been built by this African-American man, for a place for people to come.

And so there is this...

When you think about systemic and structural racism and institutional racism, this highlights the fact that it is an agreement by people to suppress others who are not like them, and the work that you're doing is really highlighting it.

How can folks give to you?

Are you a nonprofit?

And is all that on the website?

But can you talk a little bit about how you guys are funded and whether folks can give to your organization?

- Yeah.

So we're not a non-profit, we're registered as a corporation in California, but we do have a fiscal sponsor that is a non-profit, Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles County.

So via them and via our website, if you go to whereismyland.org and click "Donate", you can make a donation that will be tax deductible.

We are currently fully supported by donations, so that is really... And it's also worth noting that the 200 and some families that we really do truly want to help tell their stories and get their land back, we are doing it at no cost to them, so it is really critical that...

Especially...

I mean, I say, especially the black community, but especially white folks who want to call themselves allies and say that, you know, they support justice and reparative justice, that they step up, but also for black philanthropists and people who have networks to build and collect donations, we really need it.

And we won't be able to do this work without that.

As far as my own passion for this, really, there are two things that drove me to just feel like this is something that had to be done.

One is that I read about a family history of George Floyd, and it was an article in The Washington Post.

And one of the things that I read that really stuck with me to this day is that he had an ancestor, a great-great-grandfather named Hillary Thomas Stewart Jr who had been enslaved.

And once he acquired his freedom, he was able to acquire 500 acres of land in North Carolina that was stolen by white farmers.

So it just really... You know, we were all moved to see things differently and do something different in 2020, after George Floyd was murdered.

But understanding that loss in his family 100-plus years back and then being able to reconcile that, had his family been able to build a business or a community or a farm or anything, would he have died in the manner that he did?

And I don't think anyone can say that he would have, so that was really critical to my drive.

- Ashanti, just thank you for coming on the show today to share your story.

You're doing amazing work.

And to our viewing audience, on behalf of everyone here at PBS, I'd like to say thank you.

I'm Pastor Phillip Davis, your host.

God bless and we'll see you next week.

Until then, keep being courageous.