By Anthony O. Kellum
Atlanta Daily World
https://atlantadailyworld.com/
I grew up hearing the older generation in my family talk about land the way other people talk about money. Not land as dirt and not land as a place to build a house, although it is both. Land as something you hold. Land as something that holds you. My grandparents spoke that way, with pride and sometimes with pain, because they understood something we are still learning. In America, land is not just property. Land is power.
So let me ask you a question. If your family had owned land one hundred years ago, and still owned it today, where would you be? What would your children have inherited? For too many Black families, that question hurts, because we know the answer. We once owned land, a great deal of it, and we lost most of it. How we lost it matters but how we get it back matters more.
A little more than a century ago, Black Americans owned roughly 15 million acres of farmland, and nearly one million Black farmers worked that land. Just one generation after slavery, with almost nothing to start with, our people had become landowners. They bought land when banks would not lend to them, cleared it, farmed it, and passed it down. That land was the foundation of Black wealth in America. A paycheck can feed a family for a week land can feed a family for generations.
For most families today, landownership starts with a home. A home is land with a roof on it, and for the average American family, it is the largest asset they will ever own. Yet today, only about 45 percent of Black households own their home, compared with about 74 percent of white households. That homeownership gap is the land gap in modern form. Every month a family rents, it pays down somebody else’s mortgage. Every month a family owns, it pays down its own. That is the difference between building someone else’s legacy and building your own.
We did not lose that land because we did not value it. We lost it because the system was built to take it.
Some of it was taken by outright discrimination. For decades, the Department of Agriculture denied Black farmers the loans and the fair treatment that white farmers received as a matter of course. The federal government itself later settled claims that Black farmers were discriminated against for decades, and by then, for many families, it was too late. The farm was already gone.
Some of it was lost through laws that punished families for not having paperwork. When a parent died without a will, the land passed to every heir at once, and it became what lawyers call heirs property. No one person owned it outright, so no one person could easily protect it. One distant relative could force a sale of the whole parcel, often for far less than it was worth.
And some of it was lost because we were pushed out of the places where wealth was being built. Redlining drew a line around Black neighborhoods and told banks not to lend there. The GI Bill, which helped millions of white veterans buy homes after World War II, was largely closed to Black veterans in practice. That history is real.
Here is the truth I have learned after years in the mortgage business. Income is not wealth. A good salary can buy a nice car and a nice lifestyle, but it cannot buy a legacy. Wealth is what you own, and what you own is what you can pass on. The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances tells the story plainly. In 2022, the median net worth of a Black family was about 45,000 dollars, compared with about 285,000 dollars for a white family. That gap is not mainly about how hard we work. That gap is about what we own.
Looking wealthy and owning wealth are two different things.
Too many of us have spent our best earning years buying things that lose value the moment we drive them off the lot, while the people who build lasting wealth have spent those same years buying things that grow in value. A car depreciates. A designer bag depreciates. Land does not work that way. Land is finite. They are not making more of it. A home, held over time, builds equity. That is why the wealthiest families in this country hold real estate. It is not a secret. It is a strategy, and it is one we can use too.
Researchers estimate that more than 80 trillion dollars in wealth will change hands in this country over the next two decades. That is the largest transfer of wealth in American history, and it is happening now. Will we be on the receiving end, or will we watch it pass us by? If we own nothing to pass on, our children will start from zero, just as we did. If we own land and homes, our children will start from somewhere, and that somewhere makes all the difference.
So what does it mean to think like a landowner? It means seeing a house not as a bill, but as an asset. Renting for thirty years leaves you with receipts, while owning for thirty years leaves you with equity, and equity is something you can borrow against, sell, or hand to your children. A mortgage is forced savings in its best form. Part of every payment goes toward owning more of your home, your payment stays fixed while rents keep rising, and the home itself can grow in value. It means buying the first home, even if it is modest, because the first home is the hardest one. It means learning how homeownership works, asking questions, and getting pre-approved.
It also means protecting what we already have. If your family still owns land, especially land down South, or a family home that has been paid for over decades, do not let it slip away because no one had the conversation. Sit down with your family and ask the hard questions. Who owns it? Is there a will? Is the title clear? Are the taxes paid? One family meeting can save a hundred years of history. Put the property in a trust or a family LLC. Do not let a piece of paper, or the lack of one, cost your family its legacy.
And if your family lost its land long ago, that does not mean the story is over. You can start again. You can buy a home, or a small piece of land, or a duplex, live in one side, and let the other side help pay the mortgage. The size of the first step matters less than the direction. What matters is that you start now, because every year you wait is a year of equity that you do not get back.
I know what some people will say. They will say the system is rigged, and they are not entirely wrong. They will say it is too late, and they are wrong about that. The system was rigged against the generation that bought 15 million acres with almost nothing, and they bought it anyway. If they could build wealth under those conditions, we can build wealth under ours. What we need is the same thing they had. The belief that ownership matters, and the discipline to pursue it.
This is not just about money. Land is about belonging. When you own the ground beneath your feet, no landlord can tell you to leave. No one can raise your rent beyond your reach. You have a place to gather your family, to celebrate, to grieve, to grow old. You have a stake in your neighborhood and a reason to care about its future. Ownership changes how you see yourself, and it changes how the world sees you. It says, I am not passing through. I am here to stay.
Black America, we have spent generations working hard. We have built businesses, earned degrees, and raised families. Now it is time to own what we have built. Homeownership is where that ownership begins for most families, and it is the work I have devoted my life to. It is time to buy the home, keep the land, protect the legacy, and pass something real to the next generation. The land beneath our feet is waiting. Let us claim it, hold it, and hand it down.
Property is Power!
Dr. Anthony O. Kellum, CEO of Kellum Mortgage, LLC
Homeownership Advocate, Speaker, Author
NMLS # 1267030 NMLS #1567030
O: 313-263-6388 W: www.KelluMortgage.com
Property is Power! is a movement to promote home and community ownership. Studies indicate homeownership leads to higher graduation rates, family wealth, and community involvement.
