If you ever played on a seesaw as a child, you’d know that whoever is heavier will sink, while the other will rise. While its structure may evoke the concept of equality, since each side mirrors the other, in practice, someone’s experience depends on their weight. Systemic racism works much the same way. While our system may appear neutral, prejudice places a heavier burden on Black people. Consider, for instance, that the homeownership gap between Black and White people is wider in the modern era than it was before the civil rights movement. Contrary to the assumption that the nation has become more equitable over time and that racism is an antiquated notion, Black people are still deprived of equal access to homeownership, and as a result, are less likely to pass on generational wealth.

Due to the nation’s legacy of racism, it’s estimated that Black households’ wealth is 8 times lower than that of the average White household. As a consequence, they are more likely to have “resource-scarce kinship and social networks” which limit their prospects for wealth accumulation (Ren, 2025). According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, subprime loans, those that offer borrowers less desirable terms such as higher interest rates, fees, and stricter terms of agreement, are “five times more likely in Black neighborhoods than in White neighborhoods.” And even in high-income Black neighborhoods, they noted, homeowners are “twice as likely” to have subprime loans when compared to low-income White neighborhoods. Under these circumstances, it should come as no surprise that Black homeowners are more likely to face foreclosure, as they are more economically vulnerable (Rugh & Massey, 2010). And cases of deed theft in New York highlight deliberate efforts to target black communities.

Some may wonder how this happens, how someone can take something as significant as property that rightfully belongs to someone else. There are a variety of methods used to accomplish this, such as forging signatures on documents and filing them with the county or parish clerk without the owners’ knowledge or consent. Others place liens on their property and work to strip heirs of ownership. Because some use limited liability companies to strip Black homeowners of their property, it’s often difficult to discover the identity of those responsible. These tactics, while designed to appear legal and above board, prey on the economic vulnerability of Black homeowners and others. It’s not a coincidence that these scams often target those who are less able to defend their property against wrongful seizure. In this way, these methods echo those used throughout Jim Crow, a period when racism against Black people was legally permitted and, as a result, rampant. Given that homeownership is widely regarded as the primary marker of wealth in this country, this is a grave injustice we cannot afford to ignore.

A Black woman, Carmella Charrington, has been fighting to keep her family’s Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone, which they’ve owned for more than sixty years. After her father, Allman, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, a probate court placed him in a conservatorship. His appointed guardian, Luanne Bonnie, reportedly sold the property without their permission. Since then, Carmella and her father have contested the legality of the sale of their New York property. After a lengthy legal battle, the court issued an eviction notice and arrested Carmella when she appeared in court without her father. The day after her release from Riker’s Island, April 22nd, city officials attempted to enforce the eviction but were met by protesters who believed a grave injustice was being carried out. Officers arrested Chi Osssé, a city council member, and four other community members who physically blocked the eviction. “Once they were out of the way, police removed the front door lock and smashed their way through a wooden door,” in an effort to remove the family, according to Amsterdam News. The New York Attorney General’s Office characterized this matter as a complicated dispute, but Charrington and other community members consider this a case of deed theft and have fought to keep the property.

In 2019, a Black woman named Ms. Broadies Byas was tricked into signing away her home to scammers for $120,000, even though her home was estimated at $1.2- $2 million. Her Victorian townhouse was picturesque, complete with tall ceilings, stained-glass doors, and well-preserved picture frames, as it was built in 1856. Her father, a teacher who, according to Pulse, was “born into a family of former slaves in South Carolina, bought it in 1957 for $7,500.” Now, she’s in a legal battle to regain ownership. Her troubles began after a man who claimed to work for “Homeowners Assistance Services of New York” asked if she needed assistance with mortgage payments. In 2015, she attempted to obtain a second mortgage from the Queens-based company Launch Development. Although they pressured her to sign documents they said were standard parts of the loan agreement, they actually transferred ownership of the deed to her home. Amir Meiri, along with his father, Herzel Meir, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with their business practices, which reports suggest targeted at least sixty homeowners, including Byas. She is still working to get the title to her family home back, but it remains in limbo.

While deed theft in New York is a modern-day problem, the tactics used echo those employed throughout the Jim Crow era, the period after the brief Reconstruction Period. As I’ve noted before, the initial promise of 40 Acres and a Mule to Black Americans after the Civil War was more than an empty promise at first, as over a thousand Black people received deeds and were provided with land. But without Congressional buy-in, they were removed, at times forcibly, from their land. These tactics continued, even when Black people purchased land and built homes. Many states and municipalities passed racially discriminatory laws that tightly controlled the lives and opportunities available to Black people. This, of course, included the much-vaunted goal of homeownership. Even those who managed to overcome the seemingly insurmountable odds and acquire property faced the social scorn of White people. Many conspired to separate Black people from the property they worked so hard to buy. Often, what seemed like a fair transfer of property, with documents filed in court and taxes paid, methods used often reveal the nation’s history of racism.

For example, a Black couple, Charles and Willie Bruce, bought two plots of land in Manhattan Beach, California, in 1912 for $1,225. Together, they opened a small resort that welcomed Black families, a significant feat given that racist policies kept many from enjoying much of the natural shoreline. For twelve years, their business thrived and was widely regarded as a success. But their industriousness, while admirable to those within the black community, attracted a campaign of racial harassment that ultimately led to its closure. Local White residents made it clear they were unwelcome. As an NBC report citing historian Alison Rose Jefferson noted, “the KKK slashed tires and even left a burning mattress outside a property belonging to the Bruce family.” Using eminent domain, city officials first condemned and then confiscated the Bruce family’s property, offering the family only a small fraction of its actual value. In that respect, racism deprived their family of generational wealth. A recent investigation confirmed that “white neighbors resented the resort’s growing popularity and prosperity in its African American owners.” And in a rare case of restorative justice, officials returned ownership to their descendants in 2022, after a lengthy legal battle exposed the unjust tactics used to strip the Bruce family of their land. They sold the property back to the county for approximately $20 million.

The deed theft that Black New Yorkers have experienced in recent years is reminiscent of the land theft Black people endured throughout the Jim Crow era. White people often took property from Black people through processes that may have been technically legal but, upon closer inspection, were racially discriminatory and designed to exploit Black people’s social, economic, and political vulnerability, depriving them of an equal opportunity to pass on wealth to future generations. The racial displacement associated with the gentrification of urban areas has also occurred in rural communities. For instance, in a 2001 Associated Press investigative report entitled “Torn From Their Land,” researchers described efforts by enslaved Africans and their descendants to “generate individual and collective capital through owning and creating communities” (Lewan & Barclay, 2001). The report featured the story of Robert Gleed, a Black man from Columbus, Mississippi, who became wealthy and influential. While he acquired nearly three hundred acres of land, built a home, ran a local grocery store, and even served as a state senator, a white mob launched a violent attack that forced him to leave in November 1876 and resettle in Paris, Texas. His efforts to return and run for sheriff were thwarted by continued threats from mobs of White locals. In his absence, his land was taken by local White people.

In another instance, their report described a black community in Pierce City, Missouri, that was forced to evacuate after an armed mob of at least 1,000 White people “burned down five black-owned houses and killed four Black people.” In a New York Times article dated August 21, 1901, the editors suggested that after this attack by armed White people, “Every negro has left the town except a few railway porters known to be respectable, but they must also leave.” Because the assailants were not brought to justice, the vast majority of Black residents had no protection for themselves or their property. At least one hundred and twenty-nine people left, some of whom had to hide “in the surrounding woods” before evacuating to nearby cities. It’s estimated they collectively lost some thirty acres of farmland and ten city lots, which White people purchased at a bargain rate. For example, one report suggests that a Black woman named Eviline Brinson sold her lot for $25, even though she had purchased it for $96. Black people had no choice but to cut their losses. There are many more stories like this that illustrate how Black people were often subjected to discriminatory practices that deprived them of property and, as a result, generational wealth.

From 1910 to 1997, Black farmers lost approximately 16 million acres of land, a 90% decline from what they’d acquired in the first forty-five years after chattel slavery. Contrary to stereotypes that portray Black people as undisciplined or lazy, the reason they own only 2% of the farmland in America today is due to generations of racially discriminatory laws, policies, and practices. In The Nation, Kali Holloway suggested that decades of loan denials by the United States Department of Agriculture have greatly contributed to the racial disparities in landownership we see today. They cited the US Commission of Civil Rights, which explained that these policies “served to accelerate the displacement and impoverishment of the Negro farmer.” While deed theft in cities like New York is often seen as a unique phenomenon, this social problem should be considered within the broader discussion about the displacement and disenfranchisement of Black Americans. According to the current mayor of New York, Zohran Kwame Mamdani, “the theft of a home is the theft of a family’s future.” “Deed theft preys on the New Yorkers who can least afford it,” he pointed out while announcing his decision to create an Office of Deed Theft Prevention. And while this measure is needed to ensure the rights of Black New Yorkers and others, our society needs to eradicate the racial wealth gap that makes them economically vulnerable.

Although the Fair Housing Act of 1968 “prohibits discrimination by direct providers of housing, such as landlords and real estate companies,” as well as “municipalities, banks, and other lending institutions,” Black Americans and other racial minorities continue to face discrimination. After the passage of civil rights legislation, some may assume that our country provides equal opportunities to all groups. Yet this belief overlooks the disproportionate weight of racism. Even when Black people beat the odds and become homeowners, they frequently face challenges in maintaining access to their land. Historical and modern-day cases of deed or land theft highlight the need for our country to adopt a holistic approach that creates a level playing field. While it may be admirable to create laws that prohibit housing discrimination for Black Americans, it’s another matter entirely to enforce that legislation, to ensure that our society rises to the lofty goal it’s set, and to ensure that people have an equal opportunity to become homeowners.