Black land ownership, especially in rural areas along the coast, declined during the 20th century from 16 million to 19 million acres in the early 1900s to 7.7 million acres today, according to the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, a group trying to protect black-owned land in the Southeast.

While some of this decline reflects a nationwide dip in family farming, the group cites heirs property disputes and land loss at tax sales as significant threats to rural black landowners.

But some groups and state leaders are working to mitigate these threats. Earlier this year, South Carolina lawmakers passed a new law that should make it more difficult for land speculators to target families that own heirs property.

With rural land in the coastal areas of the Carolinas and Georgia growing in value, some developers have bought out an heir's interest in a property and then sued to force the property's sale, a process known as a partition lawsuit.

Such lawsuits have led to bitter family feuds and evictions, heirs property experts say.

In response, South Carolina lawmakers passed a law this year giving property owners a chance to buy out other family members before the land is put on the auction block.

"It's a good first step," said Willie Heyward, managing attorney for the Center for Heirs Property Preservation in North Charleston. "It gives families 55 days to get their ducks in a row."

Meanwhile, the American Bar Association is working on a package of reforms that state legislatures could enact to further protect heirs land, said Thomas Mitchell, a University of Wisconsin law professor and member of the American Bar Association task force on heirs property. He said the ABA should have this package of reforms ready early next year.

In Beaufort County, meanwhile, officials from Penn Center regularly attend tax sales in Beaufort County and ask bidders not to bid against families trying to recover their ancestral lands, said Walter Mack of the Penn Center on St. Helena Island. So far, this voluntary effort has worked. During the last tax sale, families on 49 parcels totaling 207 acres were able to reclaim their land, he said.