Hi! My name is adélàjà simon from the Law Center’s Radical Real Estate Law school. I am Ayisyen and Yorùbá born in the U.S. Recently, during some time spent on the east coast where I grew up, I was able to be in conversation with my mother about the only home that she knew growing up in Ayiti in a small town in the southwest near Baraderes. My mother is my grandfather’s first born child and with his lack of support for his children plus her having lived in the U.S. for so long, there has been fear that she might try and claim ownership of the land. Neither of us thought that we would be able to see it or visit it because of some of those dynamics, but an opportunity for re-connection with some family has reopened that possibility. As we engaged in this conversation, further fleshing out the details of this family drama, I found myself thinking about the untended graves in the back of the house where my Great Great grandparents were buried. I did not have the opportunity to even meet two of my grandparents, let alone Great grandparents before they passed away.

[If you missed Teachgiving, you can find the recordings here: Day One, Day Two, and Day Three]

In anticipation of the holiday season - inaugurated every year by a a festivity of abundance that simultaneously shrouds an incredibly violent legacy of genocide and dispossession - the Law Center took the opportunity to huddle the same questions we often ask ourselves every year. What narratives are we upholding, and in turn, what narratives are we obscuring? How do we reconcile the privileges that we have been afforded and so comfortably rejoice in while acknowledging that they are exclusive privileges not afforded to many? How do we normalize, and in fact center the conversations on the spectre of our privilege? What resulted was a series of events titled Teachgiving, focused on the faces of land liberation we don’t often see. This series was focused not only on what we take for granted, but even more important what is not always in our purview when we are navigating the world. And it is precisely  that fact which makes a lot of what we were able to offer seem radical, recognizing that radical is not inherently that which is most provocative, but instead that a provocation is a natural reaction of questioning the very foundations of how we have historically engaged with the land unquestionably.

By Christine Hernandez, Radical Real Estate Law School Apprentice

I am a wife, mother of four, grandmother, and gardener. I live in a 7 unit house very recently purchased by Bay Area Community Land Trust. We were successfully able to purchase our home after 5 years of squatting and a whole lot of community and tenant organizing. For this reality, my heart is full of gratitude. I’m dedicated to efforts that promote housing as a basic Human Right and make the law accessible to everyone. I advance these objectives as a legal apprentice and co-director of the Radical Real Estate Law School. 

We’re not shy in saying that #radicalrealestateweek was a huge success. Thank you to everyone who shared their work and brought energy to the convening. Hundreds of people from all over the US attended our workshops and panels. We also raised over $18,000 from community donations for all our work related to radical real estate. We had such a positive response to our ideas on land and housing justice, land rematriation, and radical legal tools for homeownership, that we thought we’d share the following resources to keep everyone’s creative juices flowing.

My name is Hope Williams and I am a legal apprentice at the Law Center's Radical Real Estate Law School. I’ve been an organizer and renter in San Francisco for over three years and have played a role in the newest wave of a tenant uprising. According to a San Francisco Planning Report, in 2015, 56 percent of the residents in San Francisco were renters. 56 percent! With the advent of COVID, now more than ever, we must help each other and consolidate our power as tenants because there is strength in solidarity. Being able to fight alongside the most vulnerable communities in this city has taught me a lot.