Reclaiming Lost Narratives: Property, Citizenship, and Black Architectural History

The foundations of property and citizenship in the United States are deeply entangled with the violent dispossession of Indigenous land and the exploitation of Black labor—shaping spatial realities that continue to marginalize Black Americans. Architecture, as a discipline, has largely erased these histories, failing to acknowledge the ways property ownership was both a tool of oppression and a means of survival. while also continuing to perpetrate these negative mechanisms in current design practices.

This research follows the story of my relative Titus Lindsey, born to an enslaved mother and her owner, he later became a landowner navigating the precarious boundaries of freedom and citizenship. His journey reflects a broader history of Black property owners had to navigate being property and owning property. By tracing these narratives, we challenge dominant frameworks of property and illuminate the stories of the oppressed and forgotten so that we might move towards a future that reframes architectural history.