A father made headlines this week after gifting his son 40 acres of land on his 13th birthday. Faheem Muhammad, an entrepreneur from San Diego, California, wants to teach his son the importance of land ownership and generational wealth.
Muhammad, the co-founder of a real estate investment firm, purchased the 198-acre land in 2021 to escape city life. The land is located in Boulevard. At first glance, the land, littered with boulders, trees and the U.S.-Mexico border wall, may not have appealed to most, but Muhammad saw the potential.
“We see clear space, where we can uninterruptedly enjoy nature, especially growing up in a congested city like L.A. when we are out here, it’s totally different,” Muhammad told CBS8.
His son already has plans for the land. He wants to turn it into a camping site.
“You could build, like, ATVs around the whole thing,” said Faheem, according to the outlet. “Build a zipline from the mountain.”
Muhammad is the owner of the realty company Oasis Investment Group. The company focuses on investing in, with, and for communities often ignored by more traditional financiers, helping to turn lower-income communities into an OASIS.
Muhammad says he learned about the value of land and generational wealth from his mother, Aminah Muhammad. Active in the community, Aminah has organized Rites of Passage camps for inner-city kids for years.
The phrase “forty acres and a mule” references the federal government’s failed attempt to redistribute land after the Civil War and the economic hardship that African Americans suffered as a result. The idea stemmed from a discussion that Gen. William T. Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton held four days before Sherman issued the Order with 20 leaders of the Black community in Savannah, Ga.
Sherman’s Special Field Order 15 set aside land along the Southeast coast so that “each family shall have a plot of not more than forty acres of tillable ground.” That plan later became known as: “40 acres and a mule.”
