Black Americans remain the only racial group with a homeownership rate below 50 percent.
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Property is generally worth less if it’s owned by a Black American. That sobering fact, cemented by 150 years of assessment data, underpins inequality today.
Black Americans’ properties have been undervalued by home appraisers and overvalued by tax assessors. That double punch has left Black homeowners more prone to falling behind on their taxes and, ultimately, to dispossession. One such case involved a Black landowner in North Carolina who lost his land in 1920. That loss affected the family line across generations, and his great-great grandson, George Floyd, was murdered by a police officer after a phone call to the authorities in Minneapolis about a counterfeit $20 bill one century later. Read more at www.nytimes.com.
