Here's an important issue that you probably haven't heard or thought much about lately: the loss of land by rural African-Americans of modest income. For decades, the hemorrhaging of farmland has been a plague upon black families.

According to the Land Loss Prevention Project, much of this problem is the result of the fact that many rural African-American farmers often failed to prepare wills before they died. As a result, "ownership of small pieces of property have been split amongst hundreds (and sometimes even thousands) of people."

Unfortunately, under the law, this divided ownership makes it possible for any co-owner to seek the "partition" or sale of a piece of property without regard to how much of an interest they own. Such "partition sales" can be particularly pernicious when the driving force behind the sale is a developer or a lawyer who is the main beneficiary of the whole process. In the most egregious situations, the land is actually scooped up at sale by the very same lawyer who brokered the whole transaction to begin with.

In smaller rural counties in which African-Americans have always been relegated to the margins of society, one can only imagine the emotions of alienation for the family displaced from their birthright as it's snapped up by a local bigwig. Such situations conjure up disturbing images from Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era.

As a small, partial solution to the problem, advocates have proposed a package of bills at the General Assembly. One was heard for a few minutes in a House committee recently. It deals with the situation in which the same attorney who represents one or more of the parties in the original partition action is subsequently appointed by the local clerk of court as the "commissioner" in the proceeding.

The commissioner is supposed to be an unbiased, impartial person who oversees the actual land sale. As proponents of the legislation explained, however, it's pretty darned difficult to explain to someone who's being displaced from their family plot how the same person who brought the action against them to begin with can act in their best interests when it's time to sell the land.

The proposed legislation makes it explicitly clear that attorneys who represent any party in the partition would not be allowed to serve as a commissioner except when all parties (including the landholder) allow it.

Unfortunately, although such a solution seems simple enough, it has raised the ire of some real estate lawyers who practice in this area. In committee, these attorneys argued there are so few lawyers in rural counties that it would be hard to scare up a completely untainted commissioner. What they failed to acknowledge is that there is no requirement in the law that the commissioner be an attorney.

At the end of the meeting, the bill was sent to an ad hoc subcommittee, where it faces, at best, an extremely uncertain future.

In the end, it seems, the rough treatment meted out to this modest bill is emblematic of the whole subject of land loss by rural blacks.

Let's hope that at some point, lawmakers come to the realization that, sometimes, there's more to justice than mere "efficiency" in the application of an old law and whether their individual consciences are clear.