In 1910 African-Americans owned 16-19 million acres of land in the United States, much of it rural farmland. Today, that figure has dropped to less than 8 million acres overall, and less than 2 million farm acres. What happened? In some cases, violence— whites would forcibly take farmland, a homestead, or a home from the black residents, who were often powerless to fight back in the face of systemic racism, threats of retaliation, and the 'enforcement' of the thefts by the Ku Klux Klan. More perniciously, many of these losses were the result of forced partition land sales. Many legal scholars and activists today are working to reverse the trend. [some pdfs]
posted by miss tea on Dec 16, 2007 - 41 comments

Anna Nicole Smith is going to get the $474 million after all a federal court ruled that the former Playmate of the Year should receive the huge sum. despite the fact that she was J. Howard Marshall's wife for only 14 months (the last 14 months of his life), never lived with him, and was never in his will. [more...]
posted by tsarfan on Sep 27, 2001 - 24 comments