Community Land Trust Movement Imagines Its Future

credit: Gawad Kalinga Official Website

An article being co-published by NPQ and Shelterforce addresses the support for civil rights, community land ownership through land trusts and public land banks as well as the shift in leadership to leaders of color during New Communities Inc.'s 50th anniversary celebration.

The New Communities, the country's first community land trust, is cofounded by Dr. Shirley Sherrod and held its 50th celebration under a giant air-conditioned tent at the Resora farm near Albany, Georgia. The farm was once a plantation owned by J.N. Battle.

Grounded Solutions Network, the national community land trust association, rented four buses to shuttle almost 200 network members from Atlanta - where it had a co-sponsored a conference with the Center for Community Progress, a national nonprofit that supports public land banks and focuses on how to revitalize blighted urban land—to Albany.

The buses were organized by topic. The first round was moderated by Lisa Byers, executive director of Opal Community Land Trust of the San Juan Islands region of Washington state. It identified some of the threats that the movement faced. The next round was led by India Walton of the Fruit Belt Community Land Trust in Buffalo, New York.

Dr. C. Nicole Mason, who directs the Center for Research and Policy in the Public Interest, spoke at the Resora farm and highlighted a number of the report's findings. The keynote address was delivered by civil rights activist and former Atlanta Mayor and US Ambassador Andrew Young, Jr. Young, who was once a confidante of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was with King when he was killed in Memphis.

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