Article: The Heirs’ Property: Racial Caste Origins & Systemic Effects in the Black Community

Phyllis C. Taite (Oklahoma City University School of Law) recently penned a review of Brenda D. Gibson’s (Wake Forest Law) Article in the CUNY Law Review, The Heirs’ Property: Racial Caste Origins & Systemic Effects in the Black Community, forthcoming 2023, on the Trusts & Estates Blotwell Blog. Provided below is an introduction:

Professor Gibson provides a unique look at Black land loss through heirs’ property in the Low Country, an area located on the southern tip of South Carolina which includes the Sea Islands. Her paper concludes that “heirs’ property is more a product of the deeply entrenched racial caste system of racist governmental processes and laws that have militated against Black land ownership and wealth.” As such, she indicates that landownership has been a source of wealth mobility for some, but that intestacy succession to property has caused wealth to decline in the Low Country, disproportionately for Black landowners.

After a brief historical review of the obstacles and hardships of Black landownership since the Reconstruction era, Professor Gibson analyzes how systemic racism has impacted Black land loss in the South, specifically in the Low Country. She begins by explaining how farming was the primary source of income for many Black landowners in Low Country. By the end of the 20th century, however, Black farmers had lost over ninety percent of their land. She attributed these substantial losses to government action, commercial developers, and the complicated nature of heirs’ property.