Vann Newkirk: We must consider reparations for generations of black landowners who were robbed

Over the course of the 20th century, black Americans were dispossessed of 12 million acres of land, affecting 98% of black agricultural landowners at the time. After the Great Depression, this land attracted the interests of large investors who were allowed to seize thousands of acres through federal government policies. Such practices further widened the racial wealth gap in America, the effects of which continue to affect black landowners and their descendants in the South today. "It amounts to something north of hundreds of billions, to perhaps trillions of dollars, worth of land, legacy [and] culture lost," says Vann Newkirk, a staff writer at The Atlantic who detailed this history of disenfranchisement in his recent piece, “The Great Land Robbery: The shameful story of how 1 million black families have been ripped from their farms."

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