![]() ![]() What most of us haven’t heard is that the idea really was generated by black leaders themselves. In fact, such a policy would be radical in any country today: the federal government’s massive confiscation of private property - some 400,000 acres - formerly owned by Confederate land owners, and its methodical redistribution to former black slaves. The promise was the first systematic attempt to provide a form of reparations to newly freed slaves, and it was astonishingly radical for its time, proto-socialist in its implications. ![]() It’s a staple of black history lessons, and it’s the name of Spike Lee’s film company. We’ve all heard the story of the “40 acres and a mule” promise to former slaves. General William Tecumseh Sherman in May 1865. ![]()
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