SELMA, Alabama — On a sunny, humid summer afternoon, Willie Palmer Jr. gathered his cows under a tree for feeding time. He watched as they roamed the grounds, passing by a slew of vehicles, a shed, and barn on his 20-acre property. 

As the animals feasted, Palmer stood quietly for a moment, taking in the soft buzz of the insects around him. He then walked across the grass, gesturing toward the mullein plant, and old pear, fig, and black walnut trees. 

He even paused to inspect a small cactus plant.

Palmer takes pride in caring for the farm in Selma, Alabama. It’s been his life since 2017, the year he says he inherited his family’s land, which has been passed down for generations. 

For the past year, the 50-year-old has been working overtime to protect it. On most days, Palmer splits his time wrangling his cattle and hauling loads as a truck driver. But deep into the night and well into early morning, he pored over legal documents and the deeds to his property, after he says he found a railroad worker utilizing his property without permission. 

Willie Palmer Jr. stands with his cows as they graze on his property in Selma, Alabama. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)

This encounter prompted the cattle rancher to conduct more thorough research to answer a crucial question: Who has the right to a portion of his acreage that has been in his family since 1945? 

Palmer’s fight isn’t an isolated incident. Across the South, Black landowners are challenging the pressures of private development and asserting their rights to retain their land.

Palmer is ready to prove it as he’s suing more than two dozen individuals and entities — banks, attorneys, and railroad companies — for either trespassing or what he calls a conspiracy to assume ownership of his land through fraudulent deeds, transactions or professional misconduct, according to a complaint for declaratory relief, quiet title, trespass, fraud, civil conspiracy, and professional misconduct filed by Palmer in the Dallas County Circuit Court of Alabama on July 16. 

Capital B reviewed the case docket and hundreds of pages of documents, including exhibits, amended complaints, answers and counterclaims, affidavits, motions and orders. 

One of the claims Palmer asserts in his complaint is that CSX Transportation, a freight railroad company, is “occupying his land without legal authority.” Railroad tracks intersect his land near the top northwest corner. He also asserts that his neighbor, William “Bill” Huffman III, allegedly “committed fraud” with regard to his land.

Rather than filing his own lawsuit, Palmer brought his claims as an intervenor in an ongoing property sale lawsuit by Rail Connection Inc., against Huffman and his wife, Susan O’Neil Huffman. Huffman founded Rail Connection and served as vice president until 2023. So, in his motion to intervene, which was allowed by the judge, he named more than two dozen parties as defendants, including Rail Connection, and is representing himself.  

John Q. Somerville, the attorney representing Rail Connection, did not respond to Capital B’s multiple requests for comment. Huffman also did not respond to Capital B’s multiple requests for comment about Palmer’s claims.

Huffman denied all Palmer’s allegations and that he suffered any damages, according to a Dec. 1 court filing. Huffman demands a jury trial on all issues. 

As of Dec. 17, the case is currently pending in the Dallas County Circuit Court. 

Palmer says he has proof that he’s the rightful owner of his acres. In court filings, Palmer submitted a title abstract — or comprehensive history of his land — a federal land patent, and a May 2025 land boundary survey. There are also affidavits, probate court filings, and surety bond records. There’s also a 2025 tax assessor record with Palmers’ name as co-owner.

He says his ownership of the property, which is protected by a U.S. land patent, should give him a say in what happens on and around his property. The National Archive defines a land patent as land given to U.S. citizens by the government. 

“The land certificate from the United States of America was given to [last name] Elliot. That name is still on the deed, and that heir sold it down to another family, and that heir sold it on down to another family, and so on, and the patent came all the way down to my family, and I own it now,” Palmer said. “I got all the documents, everything printed out, downloaded and everything.”

A trail of confusing documents 

Palmer’s present-day battle started a few weeks before Christmas last year. 

He discovered a CSX Transportation railroad worker performing maintenance on the tracks. He claims the employee told him, “We are taking back over the tracks from Genesee Wyoming … and refurbishing the short line,” according to the complaint he filed. 

This exchange prompted Palmer to call and email CSX for answers. 

A property manager for CSX shared the tax assessor’s map with Palmer, according to an exhibit of emails Palmer filed in his complaint. The tax assessor’s map doesn’t show the railroad tracks on Palmer’s property. 

He sent formal complaints to halt operations and put up “No Trespassing” signs. Palmer says he does not have any written agreements, leases, or contracts with the railroad. 

In an email on Dec. 1, CSX Transportation declined to comment.

“This land is highly valuable because it’s patented by the federal government,” Palmer told Capital B. “It comes down to my family not selling it, and here it is today, the railroad [CSX] is saying somebody else owns it.”

He set out to find the truth, he said.

Palmer has spent months reading case law and how to format a complaint. He dedicated hours at the Selma Public Library, making copies of documents. He requested his title abstract, a comprehensive document of his land history. In addition, he retained Jarvis & Associates to conduct a new land survey. The boundary survey map shows a railway on Palmer’s land.

Once he shared his findings with the CSX property manager, she said they would submit a “title request” and told him to “allow 6 weeks for a response,” according to emails shared in the lawsuit. A title request, or search, is a process to investigate a property and its owner to confirm ownership. 

Palmer said he never received the findings from the CSX property manager. 

An assistant general counsel for CSX sent Palmer an email that states the railroad corridor was acquired through acts of the Alabama Legislature at the beginning of the last century and granted an exclusive easement of up to 50 feet on each side of the center line for construction, occupation, and maintenance of a railroad, the court filing said.

“For over 125 years, the railroad corridor has been used for railroad transportation by CSX Transportation, Inc. predecessors railroads and lessees,” the counsel wrote. “To the extent some portion of your property is within the railroad corridor, which does not appear to be the case as shown on tax maps, your property would be encumbered by the exclusive railroad easement.”

The assistant general counsel did not respond to Capital B’s request for comment. 

Palmer continued with his research, which led him to a 1987 warranty deed.

Two brothers, Victor Bethune Atkins Jr., and Julien Smith Atkins, both of whom are now deceased, sold “all land east of the Cahaba River” for $577,600 to a married couple Galbraith McFadden Weaver III and Leah Perdue Weaver. Palmer believes this deed includes his land: the Northwest Quarter of Section 18, Township 16 North, Range 10 East. 

The Weavers are named defendants in the lawsuit. Their attorney, James B. McNeill Jr., filed a motion to dismiss Palmer’s lawsuit as against the Weavers because his complaint fails to state claims upon relief can be granted and because the deeds referenced by Palmer, don’t include his land from any sale. 

Neither the Weavers, nor McNeill, responded to Capital B’s multiple requests for comment.

By May 17, 2005, the Weavers sold three parcels of land for $1.75 million to George Ballard and Rail Connection, according to a warranty deed filed as an exhibit by Palmer. The deed includes a “less and except” clause that explicitly excludes Palmer’s property from the property transferred on the deed. This language is common in legal descriptions contained in deeds, said Jacy Fisher, an Alabama-based attorney who works in real estate litigation and estate planning. 

“It just means that the property being conveyed does not include anything described after ‘less and except,’” she wrote to Capital B. 

According to a statutory warranty deed and real estate validation sales form, on Oct. 10, 2020, Ballard sold one-half interest of three parcels of land for more than $3 million to Huffman and O’Neil Huffman, that also included the less and except clause.

Ballard did not respond to Capital B’s request for comment.

Prior to 2003, CSX operated the Meridian & Bigbee Railroad, a 93.68 mile long track that runs through four Alabama counties, including Dallas where Selma is, according to the Federal Register. In 2003, CSX entered into a 23-year land lease agreement and sold the tracks to M&B Railroad, whose name changed to MNBR after Genesee & Wyoming Inc. acquired M&B in 2005. The agreement expired in 2023, the year when CSX filed an application to acquire the railroad again. In October 2024, the federal Surface Transportation Board approved CSX’s application to purchase MNBR to create a new interchange connection in Alabama.

Despite Genesee & Wyoming not being sued, Capital B reached out for comment but did not hear back.

Fighting an 80-year legacy alone

Palmer’s fight also illustrates the challenges families face when they attempt to push back. 

His bid to secure his claim to his land is particularly poignant in the historical backdrop of his surroundings. Less than a mile away from the library where Palmer researches is the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the site of “Bloody Sunday” where 600 people were brutally battered and beaten by police officers for marching to secure voting rights. 

The American South also shares a history targeting Black communities through enacting legislation — such as vagrancy laws that criminalized unemployment — as well as repealing laws like Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15, commonly known as “40 acres and a mule,” that provided freedmen land before ripping it away. It resulted in many landowners losing their homes, livelihoods, and lives. While neither of these events are characteristic of any parties in this conflict, the shadow of this ugly history unavoidably falls on this legal saga as it unfolds. 

Palmer’s family also experienced racial violence on the very land he stands on today. In his younger years, he recalls his uncle retelling a story that white people had burned down their house when the family was away. 

He knew the sacrifices it took for Black folks to get and keep land, and he didn’t want to see their land fall into the wrong hands.

Palmer is hardly alone.

In Center, Texas, a Black family is involved in a legal battle with their local white county constable, who they allege coerced their uncle and took advantage of him to sign away his rights to gain ownership in their property. Capital B reached out to Constable Roy Cheatwood multiple times but did not hear back. Four members of the Williams family were issued arrest warrants for allegedly tampering with the water well on the property they allege they own. They were charged with criminal mischief, except one who had a felony charge tacked on to their arrest. 

Meanwhile, in Sparta, Georgia, a Black family is opposing a white-owned railroad company’s plans to build a rail spur on their 600 acres, which they allege their family acquired in the 1920s. Benjamin Tarbutton III, president of Sandersville Railroad, previously told Capital B all landowners “received market-based offers for their land using an independent appraisal firm that advised the Georgia Department of Transportation on its recent land acquisitions in the area.” 

He also previously told Capital B the company “stands ready to discuss our outstanding offers with all property owners, but several refused to talk with us once they received our initial offers.”

His spokesperson did not respond to a recent request for comment.

Earlier this year, a Fulton County Superior Court judge ruled in favor of a previous decision by the Georgia Public Service Commission that Sandersville Railroad’s project does serve a public purpose. According to a family member, the case is now being heard at an appeals court in Georgia.

“​​The Georgia PSC and Fulton County Superior Court have both found that the project is a necessary accommodation of Sandersville’s business connecting industries to rail,” Tarbutton wrote in an email. “At this point, three independent rulings have stated that the Hanson Spur is a critical infrastructure project that will open new channels of trade for local businesses and open new channels of trade for the railroad.”

In Selma, Palmer’s battle escalated when he said he found his neighbor, Huffman, entering the area he claims to be within his property, through a pathway to go hunt, according to an audio recording shared with Capital B. In addition to his rail interests, Huffman is an attorney and farmer who owns at least 60 acres surrounding Palmer’s 20 acres. He purchased it in 2005.

“The fact we’ve been using this way after all these years under Alabama law … I feel good about it,” Huffman said to Palmer in the audio recording.

Police narratives from the Selma Police Department incident/offense reports. Willie Palmer Jr. provided a copy to Capital B. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)

Palmer had called the Selma Police Department regarding suspected trespassing on his property. While inspecting the property with the officer, Huffman, his neighbor, and a companion approached Palmer to discuss the trespassing claims, according to a Selma Police Department incident report. The conversation turned into concerns over property ownership. According to audio recordings shared with Capital B, Huffman disputes Palmer’s claim that he owns all of his property and states he’ll take Palmer to court over it.

On March 12, Palmer called the Selma Police Department again. While accompanying a surveyor conducting a land survey on his property, Palmer discovered vandalism.

He found his barbed wire fence destroyed and trees uprooted. 

“I looked, and I was like, ‘Man, I know ain’t no storm come through here. I’m looking at a pile of dirt and trees laid down,” Palmer said. “He said, ‘Look like somebody came in here with a bulldozer and tore everything up — 150 feet worth of fence.”

Palmer named Huffman as a potential suspect for third- and second-degree criminal mischief and criminal trespass, according to the Selma Police Department incident/offense reports shared with Capital B. 

“I have checked with the Records Department, and they confirmed that a report is in the system; however, Mr. Palmer has not come in to press charges at this time,” the municipal clerk wrote to Capital B. 

Palmer named the Selma Police Department, along with Police Chief Kenta Fulford, as defendants in his case. Neither responded to Capital B’s multiple requests for comment. 

After filing two reports with the Selma Police Department, Palmer decided enough was enough and decided to file a lawsuit. He reached out to a few attorneys, but no one would take his case, he said. 

One of his family members, who is a lawyer, told him, “Pick one [attorney], and don’t be surprised,” referring to the lack of support he may receive.

When he asked other family members for help, they told him: “I just can’t get involved.”

Palmer then heard of Rail Connection’s pending division of sale case against Huffman. Rail Connection currently has two active lawsuits against Huffman; a property dispute and a corporate fraud suit.  

Huffman counterclaimed in denying the fraud allegations and claiming Rail Connection, through his father in-law Haines A. O’Neil, forced him out of the company. He also alleged Rail Connection created a hostile work environment and withheld money from his paycheck.

Rail Connection did not respond to Capital B’s request for comment in reference to Haines O’Neil.

On July 16, Palmer joined the case as an intervenor, a mechanism to allow nonparties to join a case whose judgment may affect their rights to effectuate their right to be heard. 

Although he doesn’t have any legal or familial support, he hopes his case will open conversation to how the use of legal systems can strip Black landowners of generational wealth.

“What I hope [Black people] realize is they will go back and look at their family land,” Palmer said. 

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the dimensions of an easement granted in connection with a railroad corridor. It was 50 feet.