A New Front in Reparations: Seeking the Return of Lost Family Land

Black families lost millions in wealth when their lands were seized through eminent domain. Now some are trying to get it back.

By Audra D.S. Burch of The NY Times. Excerpts:

"Scholars say the use of eminent domain was often racially motivated and invoked disproportionately in minority and poor communities. One study showed that between 1949 and 1973, 2,532 eminent domain projects in 992 cities displaced one million people — two-thirds of them African American."

"Separately, the return of prime beachfront real estate in Southern California to the descendants of the Bruce family, nearly a century after the land was seized from its ancestors through eminent domain, inspired more families to examine their own histories.

Michael Jones and his siblings were in their hometown, Huntsville, Ala., when they learned the return of Bruce’s Beach had been finalized. They had been following the story with the tiniest bits of cautious hope. To them, much of the Bruces’ story mirrored their own history with the land their family had used to farm cotton and corn.

Mr. Jones said his research shows that the land was seized in 1962 from his parents by local government using eminent domain — authority that allows governments to seize properties in the interest of public use, often to clear the way for freeways, parks and development. The state law calls for property owners to be paid “just compensation.”

The Jones siblings, who began researching their family’s history in 1995, say their father turned down an offer to purchase his 10-acre plot, and in 1954, the city condemned the property in order to gain access to a water source, forcing the family to move. In the years that followed, documents appear to show their parents, Willie and Lola Jones, signed the deed over to the chief of the Huntsville Land Acquisition office. The Joneses say the transaction was fraudulent because their father could not read or write and could not have signed the documents."

"In Georgia, Black families settled near the University of Georgia in Athens in the early 1900s in Linnentown, then a vibrant, close-knit neighborhood with about 50 homeowners. As part of an urban renewal project, the city of Athens and the state Board of Regents displaced the families to make way for three dormitories on campus. By the mid-1960s, the community was gone. Residents were paid as little as $1,450 for their properties. A University of Georgia analysis said homeowners received “only 56 percent of the amount they would have received if their properties had valued similarly to those outside of Linnentown.”"

How Eminent Domain Hurts California

See Jerry Brown's Good Deed Gets Punished: California's governor wants to close his state's redevelopment agencies, which abuse property rights and breed dependency among city governments by Steven Greenhut, from the WSJ, 3-12/13-11. Excerpts:

"Once public officials deem an area blighted, redevelopment agencies can use eminent domain to clear old properties and sell bonds to pay for improvements.

To pay off the bonds, the agencies gobble up any subsequent increase in tax revenue—what the state calls the "tax increment." In addition, a portion of the sales taxes generated by the new retail and commercial centers go into city, not state, coffers."

"...redevelopment agencies have become fiefdoms that run up enormous debt and abuse eminent domain by transferring private property to large developers promising to build tax-generating bonanzas. Today, there are 749 such projects. In the late 1950s, there were only nine. According to the state controller, redevelopment agencies consume about 12% of all state-wide property taxes..."

"In the 12 years I've spent reporting on this issue, I've seen an agency attempt to bulldoze an entire residential neighborhood and transfer the land to a theme-park developer. I've witnessed agencies declare eminent domain against churches—which pay few taxes—in order to sell the property at a deep discount to big-box stores that promise to keep city coffers flush. Working-class people and ethnic minorities often are the victims of this process since they often live in the vulnerable neighborhoods, and they have less muscle than big business developers."

"Once "blight" is found, the agency creates a project area and can then begins selling bonds (incurring debt) without a public vote. In 1995, one area of the city of Diamond Bar, where I lived, was declared blighted because there was chipped paint on some buildings."