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 Estate Development Program, by a generous gift from Casius Pealer and Libra Lagrone, and by support from the Reimagine Fund. The Reimagine Fund matches real estate developers with groups of supporters who can use the money they were already going to pay in taxes to invest in real estate projects. You can learn more at www.reaimaginefund1.com. Production and Sound Editing are provided by George Ingmire. Please join us as we tell the story of our nation through a lens of real estate and unequal opportunity in America. Thank you for listening to Property Lines.
Will Bradshaw is a lover of stories in all forms, podcast and otherwise. He has spent his professional career as a developer of tax-advantaged real estate and teacher, which is a fancy way of saying that he is a professional storyteller. Property Lines has provided a new outlet for him to tell stories, and he is grateful for the opportunity to learn this medium and the support from all the people who have helped it come to life, especially George Ingmire.
George Ingmire began working in audio at the age of 9, recording a DJ set on an 8-track deck using vinyl records and a Radio Shack Realistic microphone. From that point forward, audio production and music has defined his life, including 20 years as a WWOZ radio programmer and work as a sound recordist in film and podcast production. He recently joined the Property Lines podcast team as an editor, recordist and playlist curator - a role that brings together his love of production, personal narratives and creative storytelling.
In a moment of economic crisis at the turn of the 20th century, sisters Corinne, Louise, Carmen, and Virginia Tureaud decided to leave their Black family in New Orleans and pass the rest of their lives as white women. For over 100 years, the two parts of this family were lost to each other. Then one of Corinnne's granddaughters, Alice Jones, decided to buy an Ancestry DNA subscription for her sister, also Corinne. That started a journey that led to a reunion of the full Tureaud family, 100 years after the four sisters left. In this episode,we tell that story, Alice and Corinne's story, of unequal opportunity in America.
This 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 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. What follows is the story of 300 acres of family property in Green County, AL and Marie's story of unequal opportunity in America.
