Keep the Land
A lineage-based plan to protect inherited land and homes from the taxes and legal traps — forced partition sales, property-tax spikes — that strip them before they reach the next generation. It doesn’t cut a check; it stops the leak, so families keep and pass down what they hold.
The problem
Wealth is a stock, not a paycheck — it accumulates through what a family owns and hands down. Median household net worth (Fed SCF 2022): white $285,000, Hispanic $61,600, Black $44,900. Where transfer was blocked for a century, the gap barely moves no matter how income, education, and homeownership improve.
The specific injury is land. 1865’s "40 acres" was reversed within months; Black landholding fell from ~16–19M acres in 1910 to under 3M by 1997 — about 90% lost, valued at roughly $326B.
It was taken mostly legally — not night riders, but paperwork: forced partition sales (a speculator buys one heir’s share and forces an auction, often for half of market value), decades of discriminatory USDA lending, and property-tax sales. The same machinery that took the land can be turned to protect it.
How it works
- 11 · Heirs’-property protection
Adopt the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act in every state, fund clear-title and legal aid, give family a right of first refusal, end forced auctions. (Reaches the most families; only works if legal aid is funded.)
- 22 · Property-tax relief
Freeze or cap property tax on inherited ancestral land and homes so a rising bill can’t force a distress sale. (Largely a state/local power.)
- 33 · Capital-gains / step-up treatment
Protect the step-up in basis and ease capital-gains on inherited ancestral property so heirs aren’t taxed into selling.
- 44 · Estate-tax relief (the weak lever)
Honest limit: the federal estate tax exempts the first $15M per person, so it touches almost no one — which is why the plan leans on levers 1–3 that reach ordinary families.
The data behind it
Eligibility runs by documented descent from people enslaved in the U.S., verified through a federal registry — a lineage classification, not a racial one. After SFFA v. Harvard (2023) a race-defined program would likely be struck down; a lineage rule aims to stand on ground the courts may accept (cf. Morton v. Mancari).
Reparations are not hypothetical: Germany (Holocaust, $90B+), Japanese American redress (~$1.6B + apology), Canada residential schools (~$4B), New Zealand iwi settlements (land + assets). The record shows money paired with acknowledgment, and land/institutions over one-time checks, last longest.
Figures are proposal/modeled estimates, validated against real data as the plan runs — not claims from Salt Tab’s evidence pipeline.
How we’d execute
- Foundation (yrs 0–2) — pass a documentation act that builds the federal genealogy registry and an official finding of government-caused loss. Nothing attaches until this exists.
- Start here (yrs 1–4) — heirs’-property protection: nationalize the UPHPA (adopted in ~22 states + DC + USVI so far), fund clear-title and legal aid.
- Escalate — property-tax and capital-gains relief, then broader measures, paired with acknowledgment. Designed as a companion to direct transfers (cash, baby bonds), not a rival.
What we want your input on
- It protects wealth but doesn’t create it — families with little to pass down gain little. How is that paired with a direct transfer?
- On Darity & Mullen’s definition it isn’t reparations (no direct wealth transfer). Is "a start, not a settlement" the right frame?
- Does the lineage classification hold up legally, and how is descent verified fairly and privately?