Mayors across America discuss reparations for Black AmericansMayors across the country discuss why reparations are important and what outcomes may emerge from their collective and individual efforts.Harrison Hill, USA TODAYJonathan Burgess treasures the historic legacy of his 19th Century ancestor, Rufus Burgess, who gained freedom from slavery after coming to California in the late 1840s and built a prosperous life for his family in gold rush country. The northern California fire battalion chief also values the more than 80 acres of land owned by his great great grandfather and his descendants, which he says the state wrongly took in 1947 and is now part of Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Coloma. He and his family want the state to return that land, once home to abundant fruit-bearing orchards and Rufus Burgess’s blacksmith shop.”Ultimately, our goal is to have our land returned, but first to recognize what actually took place,” said Burgess, who has documents he claims support his case, including one showing ownership of a church still on the land. “If we as Americans want to truly heal our nation and atone for what happened to Black people that were formerly enslaved and descendants of slaves, we’ve got to first tell the truth, as difficult as (that) may be.”The Burgesses are one of a number of Black families across the country seeking the return of land they say has been wrongly confiscated, often by government entities, over the century-plus since the end of the Civil War. The times, places and details differ, but all share the contention that their forebears were mistreated because of race.At stake for these families is millions in dollars worth of valuable property that has become public land or was sold to other families, often white. The loss of these properties is one reason that Black generational wealth is just a fraction of that accumulated and inherited by white families, experts say.Some claims have been ongoing, such as a decades-long fight by Black farmers to be compensated for mistreatment, including discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that cost them millions of acres of farmland. After a class-action suit yielded little relief, recent governmental efforts to make amends to those farmers, who lost 90% of their property during the 20th Century, have been stalled by lawsuits by white farmers and Congress’ failure to pass Build Back Better legislation, a roughly $2 trillion package designed to strengthen the social safety net by providing for free preschool, subsidized child care and Medicare expansion.Other efforts are more recent, with some fortified by the Bruce family, who last year saw state legislation passed that will allow them to regain valuable oceanfront property taken by Manhattan Beach, California, via eminent domain in the 1920s. Willa and Charles Bruce bought the property in 1912, turning it into a resort popular with Black visitors during segregated times. After frequent harassment, including a Ku Klux Klan arson attempt, the city seized the property in 1924, saying it would be used as a park. The property, which was later turned over to the state and then Los Angeles County in 1995, is estimated to be worth $75 million. Growing conversation: Will California become the first state to pay Black people reparations?”Black and Latino (people) have been the primary victims of eminent domain abuse and have almost never been paid market value for their property,” said Thomas W. Mitchell, a Texas A&M law professor who focuses on property law and the loss of Black-owned land. “Bruce’s Beach really is the first time in U.S. history that the descendants of an African American family have actually gotten some form of justice when their property was taken unjustly.”The Bruce’s Beach success also spawned the creation of Where Is My Land, a non-profit organization formed in California whose national mission is “to help Black Americans reclaim stolen land and secure restitution” through advocacy, research and technology.Since its formation last year, Where Is My Land has received about 400 requests for help from families across the United States, including Burgess and his relatives, said co-founder Kavon Ward, who earlier created the Justice for Bruce’s Beach advocacy group.A Black entrepreneur’s claim against the Cleveland Clinic, a renowned medical institution, for property taken in the 1980s and a group of descendants seeking restitution from Palm Springs, California, for the destruction of family homes in the 1950s and 1960s reflect the range of cases taken on by the group.More than half of the cases are viable in terms of supportive evidence and documentation, Ward said. The land-return movement has gained momentum since Bruce’s Beach, with claims coming in from all over the country, especially the Midwest and the South, Ward said. The greatest chances for success are in California, due to its willingness to consider such claims, she said. “I’m a little bit more cautiously optimistic here in California because the governor has already told folks where he stands on redress and reparations and then the state Legislature has done a phenomenal job with the Bruce’s Beach situation,” said Ward, who is based in Los Angeles.The individual family claims are gaining greater prominence at the same time as larger, broader examinations are looking at the possibility of reparations for descendants of enslaved Black people, including a California state task force.Jonathan Burgess testified before the task force in September. He said more people need to know the story of his family and other Black families who lived in Coloma.”I think that California, but more importantIy America, is ready for the truth. I plan to yell on every mountaintop until we get there and somebody pays attention or people begin to question: Why don’t we talk about the pioneer Black families or the Black congregations that were here in the town? None of that’s talked about,” Burgess said.Both the land-return efforts and the reparations discussions have roots in the historic mistreatment of Black people, from slavery to Jim Crow laws to more recent discrimination, but they differ in a significant way, said A. Kirsten Mullen, a folklorist and co-author of “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century.”Justice and restitution for the Bruce, Burgess and other families with specific property claims are important for historical, financial and moral reasons, but Mullen said they won’t resolve the $840,000 wealth gap between Black and white households that has roots in the federal government’s failure to provide 40-acre land grants to emancipated Black people after the Civil War.”None of those things, as valuable as they are from the standpoint of increasing goodwill and doing what the cities and states should have done in the first place, are going to move the needle on the racial wealth gap, (whose) elimination is … the primary purpose of reparations,” Mullen said.Where Is My Land co-founder Ashanti Martin, who lives in Philadelphia, also sees the land cases as separate from the larger question of reparations.”We consider the issue of returning stolen land as one of property rights, as a legal issue, as something that involves principles that every American regardless of race holds in esteem,” Martin said.Bruce’s Beach may be the model case needed to defeat long odds because the family’s ownership was well documented and the state supported the return of the land via legislation.”Folks never thought that Black people would get land back and it happened. So, we’re taking that mindset. We’re not saying it may happen the same exact way, but we believe that we can make it happen again,” Ward said.In many other cases, lack of ownership documents, sometimes through willful destruction by government officials, is an obstacle. And, for many Black farm owners, the absence of wills has led to divided inheritances that often result in forced land sales at bargain rates for buyers who are typically white.Rosalind Alexander-Kasparik, a descendant of once enslaved horse breeder and trainer Daniel Alexander, who started a historic Texas farm in Pilot Knob in 1847, sees Bruce’s Beach as inspiration in her family’s fight to prevent the state of Texas from taking a piece of the farm by eminent domain for expansion of a highway near Austin. The state previously took a piece in 1968 when it built part of U.S. 183, she said.”It was a very, very nice little pick-me-up with the Bruce’s Beach thing, even as far away as Texas, because it was a family that actually did get their land back,” said Alexander-Kasparik, whose family is working with Where Is My Land. “Here was a family that actually did meet at least some of the promise of reparations. Here was a family that prevailed and actually got a little bit back of what was taken.”Alexander-Kasparik said state officials told her the eminent domain process is on “indefinite hold,” but she wants any land-taking consideration to be canceled, recalling “how upset and how devastated the family was that the roadway could not be stopped” in 1968. The Texas Department of Transportation said in a statement Friday that the highway expansion is currently unfunded “and no design footprint has been established.” As for the property’s long heritage, the department said, “We always try to avoid impacts to eligible or designated historic properties, if at all possible.”The public may connect more readily and emotionally with individual families and their stories, whether it’s the Bruces, the Burgesses or the Alexanders, Martin said.”That’s when people’s empathy is triggered. If you’ve worked so hard to buy a home, (you) wouldn’t want to lose that” home, she said. “I think a lot of decent people would say it’s wrong. And if we agree that it’s wrong, then someone should attempt to do something about it to remedy that.”Beyond an individual success such as Bruce’s Beach, Texas A&M ‘s Mitchell sees hope in other areas. Legislation he drafted to protect heirs from forced farm sales in cases where an owner dies without a will, a situation that disproportionately harms Black families, has passed in 18 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”I am seeing progress made on addressing an area of property law that had been abused forever,” said Mitchell, who is part of a land-loss reparations research team seeking to value the massive agricultural land loss suffered by Black families between 1920 and 1996. Efforts by some cities, including Seattle, Minneapolis and Richmond, to map areas subject to racially restrictive covenants and others discriminated against via redlining, a practice in which loans and other assistance are denied in areas with predominantly Black populations, are promising, he said. That kind of research, which reveals discrimination in liberal bastions in the North as well as areas of the Deep South, could lead to redress and restitution, he said. It’s also an important step in a growing effort to chronicle the true story of inequality in the United States, even as another movement seeks to stifle such discussion.”We’re at this very strange intersection in history where … there seems to be interest in having a more accurate and truthful accounting of what happened in the past, including some of the racialized history,” he said. At the same time, there’s a different “notion that (we can’t) talk about actual history, to the extent that it will make people feel bad. It’s an interesting parallel, opportunities to go forward but opportunities to drag us way back to the past, and makes it an incredibly confusing moment.”