Building Power Together to Challenge the Status Quo

Heirs’ property?is land that has been passed down through generations without a will, creating shared ownership among many descendants. Over time, unless title to the land is cleared and land rights secured, the opportunity for those owners to use their land for economic benefit is limited.

As a result, underserved, vulnerable landowners throughout the country—especially women, Indigenous people, Black Americans, and low-income people—have?involuntarily lost their family property?through contested claims, unaffordable high transaction costs, forced sales to speculators, and outright fraud.

Researchers?estimate?that?Black families alone?have lost hundreds of billions of dollars in such land value over the last century. And the US Department of Agriculture considers heirs’ property the “leading cause of Black involuntary land loss.”

The third case study in our?What’s Working in Rural?series showcases the?Sustainable Forestry and African-American Land Retention Network?(SFLR), a Black-led organization founded in 2012 to keep Black-owned forests forested and within the family.

SFLR is a network of eight anchor organizations deeply grounded in rural Black communities across the South, from Virginia to Texas. These organizations use sustainable forestry as a way for landowners to maintain their?deep ties to the land while promoting wealth creation and land retention.

Leadership development is embedded in the work of SFLR’s anchor organizations. As anchor organizations serve and support landowners exploring ways to preserve and manage their forested property, they also work together as a network to?uplift issues?that need to be addressed at the local, state, or even national levels.

Staff from an anchor organization accompany community members on their journeys to address these issues, developing leadership capacity in rural communities by building trusting relationships and, ultimately,?building power within communities and families that have been largely excluded from existing systems.?

Read our short case study for more and?four tips?for the practice of 'leading through relationship.'