“If it had not been for the Lord who was on our side…” Psalm 124 opens with a line that has been sung in Black churches on both sides of the Atlantic for generations. Every October, when Black History Month comes round in the UK, it is a fitting question to sit with. Where would we be?
For many Caribbean families, one concrete answer to that question can be found in the land and houses they hold today. A small plot in the hills of Clarendon. A terraced house in Birmingham. A family yard that has passed through four generations. These are not just property. They are evidence of a long road travelled.
A history bound up with land
Our ancestors were brought to the Caribbean to work land they could never own. They were themselves treated as property. When emancipation came, many freed people worked hard to acquire land of their own, sometimes through church-supported free villages, sometimes by saving painstakingly to buy small plots. A piece of ground meant a measure of independence: somewhere to grow food, build a house and raise children who belonged to themselves.
That hunger for land runs deep in Caribbean culture still. It is part of why family land carries such emotional weight, why disputes over it can be so bitter, and why so many in the diaspora send money home to build.
The Windrush generation and the search for a home
Those who came to Britain after the Second World War often faced a different struggle. Many found it hard to rent rooms, and some landlords openly refused them. Families crowded into single rooms. Some pooled money through partner schemes to buy houses, often run-down ones, and then let rooms to others who had nowhere else to go. Churches became places not only of worship but of practical support.
Consider a couple who arrived in the late 1950s with two suitcases and a Bible. They rented a single room for years, saved every spare shilling, and eventually bought a terraced house that needed a new roof. Their grandchildren now live in that same house, or have used its value to buy homes of their own. When those grandchildren look at the front door, they are looking at decades of faith and sacrifice.
Looking back to go forward
The psalmist in Psalm 119 wrote, “Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction” (Psalm 119:92, NKJV). Looking back is not nostalgia. It is a way of recognising what held us up when everything else was against us.
Many of us have not come as far as we hoped. There is still a real gap in home ownership and wealth in many places, and plenty of families are still renting, still saving, still struggling. That is true, and it matters. But looking back also shows how far our families have already come, and that the same faithfulness is still at work.
Honouring the road with how we build
Gratitude for what our grandparents achieved can shape what we do with it. Some ways to honour that legacy:
- Tell the story. Record the older people in your family talking about how they got their land or house. Those memories disappear quickly.
- Sort out the paperwork. Too much family land is lost or fought over because titles were never updated and wills never made. Getting this right is a gift to the next generation.
- Keep the doors open. Our grandparents let rooms to strangers who had nowhere else to go. How can our homes serve others now?
- Teach the next generation. Talk to young people about saving, credit, land and home ownership. Much of what our elders learned the hard way can be passed on freely.
- Give thanks together. Some families gather each year at the family yard or the old house to pray and remember. It is a practice worth keeping.
Praise before the finish line
Psalm 124 ends: “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 124:8, NKJV). The people who first sang it had just escaped disaster. They were not yet safe in every way. But they paused to recognise who had brought them through.
This Black History Month, whether you are standing on land in St Elizabeth that your great-great-grandfather bought after emancipation, or in a rented flat in London saving for your first deposit, you can do the same. Look back over the road. Give thanks for those who walked it before you. And trust the same God who carried them to carry you on.
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