Property Lines Podcast

This month's episode is about Marie McGruder, a fifth-generation descendant of Charles McGruder, and great granddaughter of Charles McGruder, Jr. who Marie believes was the first Black landowner in Greene County, Alabama. After emancipation, the McGruder family joined together, purchasing and then farming large homesteads that were home to multiple groups of relatives. But as each generation grew larger and moved further from the land, the ability to manage this distant homestead also became a strain on relationships among relatives, which ultimately led the fourth-generation descendants (Marie’s father’s generation) to make the difficult decision to sell the land. After receiving a check in the mail in 2020 for her share of a property sale, Marie made a series of decisions that led her to reassemble over 100 acres of her great grandfather Charles Jr.’s original landholdings. She has spent the last year creating a business plan to make profitable use of the land that could also chart a new course for heirs' property throughout the South. Heirs' property is land that never went through a formal succession, and often leaves inheriting family members without important legal protections that would otherwise be in place. What follows is the story of 300 acres in Greene County, AL and Marie’s story of unequal opportunity in America.

Our fourth episode is now live. In this episode, we are talking with Angela Kyle about her family’s multi-generational connection to Carpenter’s Creek in Pensacola, Florida. The creek, which is widely associated with her great, great grandmother, Jennie Hudgins, had come to be used for baptisms for Black churches on Sundays and recreation by both Blacks and Whites throughout the week. This access was especially important for the Black community because their options for recreation and religious gathering places were severely constrained by segregation. According to a 1959 letter to the editor, when Angela's family sold the land in 1956, they were told it would stay accessible to the community. A prominent local businessman who had been a Klan member earlier in his life, reneged on that promise, and Carpenter’s Creek was cut off from all Pensacolans, but especially its black community for the last 66 years. But thanks to the 2012 Restore ACT, and the concerted efforts of a number of local residents, including Angela and her mother, Carpenter’s Creek is enjoying a renewal. Angela shares this story, her family’s story, of Carpenter’s Creek and unequal opportunity in America. https://www.propertylinespodcast.com/podcasts/episode-4

You can now find Property Lines on all your favorite podcast distribution platforms. So listen wherever you get your podcasts, and hear more about race, real estate, and unequal opportunity in America.

Property Lines Podcast Property Lines tells stories of land. Who owns it? Who works it? Who has access to the wealth pulled from it, and how these stories echo through generations to create the reality we find today? Property lines was made possible by the support of the Tulane School of Architecture's Sustainable Real Es...

Our third episode is now live, and you can get it on all your favorite podcast platforms. This episode again features Mr. A.P. Tureaud, Jr. recounting how he learned the story of the Tureaud lineage, something that had been a mystery to him for his entire life. When A.P. received an unexpected call one day from a white man who was also his cousin, Duke Rivette, A.P. found a window into the history of his father’s family in the Americas.

What follows is the Tureaud family story of America’s original sin, played out on Bagatelle and Union Plantations in St. James Parish. It is a story of how French sugar farmers enslaved their African relatives, and this entangled web of exploitation and familial regard, violence and love wound its way into the present day. What follows is the Tureaud Family story of unequal opportunity in America.

Our second episode is now live. This episode discusses the integration of LSU, the first all-white State University in the South to admit an African-American student. Mr. A. P. Tureaud Jr. successfully sued LSU to gain entry in 1953. Mr. Tureaud attended LSU for 55 days that year, one year before Brown versus Board of Education toppled the separate but equal doctrine established by the Plessy versus Ferguson decision in 1896, which made segregation the legal system in the Southern United States.

Mr. Tureaud describes the choice to attend LSU as the worst mistake he ever made, and marvels nearly 70 years later at the meanness that people displayed towards him, especially the faculty and other adults. This is the first of several interrelated stories about Mr. Tureaud and his extended family. The conversation today is focused on A. P.'s story of unequal opportunity in America. You can listen here.

https://www.propertylinespodcast.com/podcasts/episode-2-a-p-tureaud-jr-integrating-lsu

Property Lines Podcast updated their business hours.

At my father’s funeral, the founding Director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, the Reverend James Harrington, guessed that Dad was the only person in the Texas Bar association that listed both real estate and civil rights as his professional areas of interest. My own professional interests have not strayed far from his.

In honor of William Thomas Bradshaw, Jr, we are launching the Property Lines podcast on May 15, 2022, what would have been Dad’s 76th birthday.

Please check out our pilot episode, which looks at the profound impact of the GI bill on American society through the experience and expertise of Dr. J. Phillip Thompson. Phil is a tenured Professor of Urban Politics at MIT and was twice a Deputy Mayor of NYC. But long before that, Phil was a kid in Philadelphia living both the opportunity and disparate impact that the GI Bill offered his family. Future episodes drop on the 15th of every month and explore personal stories of real estate and unequal opportunity in America.

Dad would have liked this podcast. We hope you will, too. Listen now at www.propertylinespodcast.com.

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