Donate to Our Mutual Aid Ecosystem Rooted in Restorative Land Justice

Over the decades, numerous Black-led nonprofit institutions have attempted to address the steady erosion of the African American agricultural land base and intergenerational wealth; however, their efforts have been unsustainable due to perpetual over-reliance on governmental and philanthropic support. The Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund is our response to the nonprofit scarcity complex.

Channeling the collective spirit of the Freedom Quilting Bee (a textilecraft cooperative founded by Black women agrarian-artisans in Alberta, Alabama in 1966), the Acres of Ancestry Initiative re-centers ecocultural traditions in collaboration with rural communities throughout the Black Belt region through storytelling, communal e-commerce, ecocultural heritage and textile arts production, and traditional knowledge retention programs to support cultural regeneration and establish a sustainable funding stream to seed the Black Agrarian Fund.

The Black Agrarian Fund, a community-controlled land and financial cooperative, supports the communal aspirations of securing land for landless returning generation farmers, land-based ecopreneurs, and other cooperative configurations; provides non-extractive capital and legal support to land stewards who desire to protect their farmlands from partition sales, tax sales, foreclosures, and USDA public auctions; and creates a sustainable financial stream to revivify community wealth-building efforts throughout the Black Belt region. A portion of the funds raised for the Black Agrarian Fund supports the Black Belt Justice Center Attorney Network in the delivery of pro bono and/or low bono curative legal services for legacy farmers and heir property land stewards (i.e., probate, clearing title, land trusts and limited liability company legal formations, debt settlement negotiations, etc.). Technical assistance is provided to establish creative collective land tenure arrangements such as hybrid life estates for retiring elder farmers, permanent land tenure for landless next generation farmers, other cooperatively governed LLCs, and/or community land trusts.

The Black Belt Justice Center, a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization (Tax ID # 45-4441783), is the fiscal sponsor for the Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund. In order to regenerate the African American agricultural land base to the aspirational pinnacle of 15 million acres in 1910 as well as address the unmet land access needs of the landless returning generation, the Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund encourages acts of restorative land justice through land donations and bequests. Donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law. If you prefer to donate via check note, our mailing address is as follows:

Black Belt Justice Center

PO Box 2521

Washington DC 20013