Abstract
Successful heirs’ property reform—the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA)—is widespread in the United States. Despite these advancements, Louisiana falls behind. Louisiana is the only state in the Deep South that has not enacted legal reform to protect heirs’ property owners. Heirs’ property locks many Black Americans into persistent poverty and economic oppression, eliminating generations of Black American wealth. This research note describes and examines these issues. Articulating the history of systemic legal oppression of Black land ownership, this article demonstrates how the current legal state shuns Black Americans economically and sociopolitically disadvantages them. It also examines how enacting the UPHPA could help Black Louisianans achieve economic stability.
Recommended Citation
Davis, Ifeyinwa, and Lauren Hall. 2023. "Black Land: Research Note on the Heirs’ Property to Poverty Pipeline in Louisiana." Journal of Rural Social Sciences, 38(1): Article 6. Available at: https://open.clemson.edu/jrss/vol38/iss1/6
