It is impossible to understand the twenty-first-century racial wealth gap without first unpacking the historic attacks on Indigenous and Black land ownership. From the moment that colonizers set foot on Virginian soil, a centuries-long war was waged, and long after those initial colonial pursuits, an existential dilemma remained: Who owns what on stolen land? Who owns what with stolen labor? To answer these questions, we must be willing to face one of this nation’s first sins: stealing and hoarding the land.

Rooted traces the experiences of Brea's own family's history of having land violently taken from them, in Kentucky and North Carolina, to explore historic attacks on Black land ownership and understand the persistent racial wealth gap. Ultimately, her grandfather's decades spent purchasing small parcels of land back resulted in the "Baker Acres"—a haven for the family, and a place where they are surrounded by love, sustained by the land, and wholly free.