As families gather at Legacy Park to take in the city of Alachua’s annual July 4 fireworks display, a neighboring family will be celebrating a special milestone of their own.

On Nov. 2, 1925, Allen and Maggie Lumpkins purchased a 6-acre plot of land for $500 that abuts where Legacy Park now sits. Their descendants have long spent the July 4 holiday on the property as a reunion of sorts, so they decided this year’s gathering would honor the achievement of keeping the land in the family for a full century.

“Way back in 1925, they [Allen and Maggie] had the courage to get the property, to farm on the property, and to maintain it for their children and their only grandchild,” said Tatanya Peterson, the great-great-granddaughter of the Lumpkinses. “Property ownership was something to be proud of… because their parents were enslaved.”

To add historical context to the significance of their landowner status, the Lumpkins family put down roots during a time of Jim Crow laws and just a few years before the Great Depression began. World War II would take their only grandchild overseas, all while Allen’s mother, wife, and children maintained the property throughout.

“If we talk about Black landownership, in a massive way, it starts from emancipation,” said Belay Alem, an anthropologist who researched Alachua County heirs’ property data during his doctorate studies at the University of Florida.

Heirs’ property refers to land that passes from generation to generation, often without formal documentation. Although Peterson’s family land doesn’t necessarily meet that definition, it is still representative of generations owning the same property.

“From then until the 1920s… the Black community was highly motivated to own property,” Alem said, adding that Black landownership grew to about 16 million acres nationwide. “Wealth is not all about the money you have in the bank. It captures a lot of things: Access to education, access to health, credit score… but what is the springboard for almost all of that wealth? It’s real property.”

Peterson spent years tracing her family history, a difficult if not impossible task for many Black Americans with enslaved ancestors. She was able to dig all the way back to the fourth great-grandparents whose enslavement landed them in this part of Florida. Allen and Maggie Lumpkins were on her maternal line.

Maggie Lumpkins outlived her husband and four children, and she had the foresight to pass the property onto her only grandchild, Orian, and his heirs. Peterson has the deeds from the original purchase as well as when it came to belong to her maternal grandfather.

Making the timeline feel even shorter is the fact that Peterson has memories of Maggie, who died at 96 years old when Peterson was 6.

Now, as around 60 members of her family plan to meet to celebrate the milestone landownership anniversary, Peterson says the legacy of her great-great-grandparents is in the resilience and strength they passed down.

“It’s so overwhelming sometimes to think of their journey and the hard work they put in,” Peterson said. “I think they would be extremely proud of us for keeping [the land] in the family.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated with information from Belay Alem.