The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was concerned about both poverty and race, inextricably linked because of the long and brutal history of racial injustice in housing, employment, and education. What Dr. King called the beloved community reflected a vision of a world built on peace, human dignity, and shared material abundance for all people. To explore this linkage of poverty and race, I employ two related Christian theological concepts: the universal destiny of the goods of the earth and the social mortgage that encumbers all private property to ensure the equitable provision of those goods to all and for all generations. I analyze the ways in which the universal destiny of goods can be mediated through U.S. property law by structuring the ownership and use of land and buildings within the context of social obligation. But while the law has the capacity to ensure ownership, security, and infrastructure for all, U.S. society has failed to make the necessary payments on the social mortgage that would create this reality—a failure due primarily to severe racial and economic injustices, both historical and contemporary. Yet there is hope: I present examples that offer glimpses of the beloved community.