Editing Forty acres and a mule (section)

==Legacy==
According to [[Henry Louis Gates Jr.]]:<blockquote> 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. In fact, such a policy would be radical in any country today: the federal government's massive confiscation of private property{{snd}}some 400,000 acres{{snd}}formerly owned by Confederate land owners, and its methodical redistribution to former black slaves.<ref>Gates, 2013.</ref></blockquote>

According to historian John David Smith:<blockquote>
:"What does this history teach us? Yes, the historical record disproves assertions that the federal government reneged on promises to grant the freedpeople "forty acres and a mule." But the fact that the government never made such a promise in the first place tells us something about how black people were treated in 19th-century America. Moreover, it is important to remember that the freedpeople desperately wanted land, believed that they had been deceived, and felt betrayed. The legacy of that sense of betrayal lingers on. After 138 years, the stubborn myth of "forty acres and a mule" remains a political football and a sober reminder of the ex-slaves' broken hopes and shattered dreams.<ref name="enduring myth"/></blockquote>

By the 1870s, blacks had abandoned hope of federal land redistribution, but many still saw "forty acres and a mule" as the key to freedom.<ref>{{harvnb|McKenzie|1993|p=68}} "Initially the freedmen expected the federal government to facilitate this dream through the redistribution of their masters' plantations. Although forced ultimately to relinquish the hope of federal intervention, they nonetheless held tightly throughout the Reconstruction era to the vision of an independent black yeomanry."</ref> Black land ownership in the South increased steadily despite the failure of federal Reconstruction.<ref name=Mitchell526>{{harvnb|Mitchell|2001|p=526}}</ref> One quarter of black farmers in the South owned their land by 1900. Near the coast, they owned an average of 27 acres; inland, an average of 48 acres.<ref>{{harvnb|Oubre|1978|p=196}}</ref> By comparison, 63% of Southern white farmers owned their land.<ref>{{harvnb|Oubre|1978|p=178}}</ref> Most of this land was simply bought through private transactions.<ref name=Mitchell526 />

In 1910, black Americans owned 15,000,000 acres of land, most of it in Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina. This figure has since declined to 5,500,000 acres in 1980 and to 2,000,000 acres in 1997.<ref name=Otabor2>{{harvnb|Otabor|Nembhard|2012|p=2}} "A picture of the magnitude of the issue of land ownership and record titles is that in 1910, African American land ownership in the United States reached its peak of 15 million acres with nearly all of it in Mississippi, Alabama and the Carolinas, but by 1997 the numbers had declined drastically to about 2.3 million acres (according to Thomas, Pennick and Gray, 2004 based on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture). The rate of decline of African‐American land holdings far exceeds the loss among other ethnic groups. Comparing the rate of African‐American farmland loss to other groups in 1997, blacks lost fifty‐three percent (53%) compared to 28.8% for other ethnic groups, while whites experienced steady growth (Civil Rights Action Team, quoted by Gilbert and Sharp, 2002)."</ref><ref name=McDougall127 /><ref>{{harvnb|Mitchell|2001|p=507}}</ref> Most of this land is not the area held by black families in 1910; beyond the "[[Black Belt (geological formation)|Black Belt]]", it is located in Texas, Oklahoma, and California.<ref name=Mitchell527>{{harvnb|Mitchell|2001|p=527}}</ref> The total number of Black farmers has decreased from 925,708 in 1920 to 18,000 in 1997; the number of white farmers has also decreased, but much more slowly.<ref name=Mitchell527 /> Black American land ownership has diminished more than that of any other ethnic group, while white land ownership has increased.<ref name=Otabor2 /> Black families who inherit land across generations without obtaining an explicit title (often resulting in [[Concurrent estate|tenancy in common]] by multiple descendants) may have difficulty gaining government benefits and risk losing their land completely.<ref name=McDougall127>{{harvnb|McDougall|1979–1980|pp=127–135}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Otabor|Nembhard|2012|pp=3–4}}</ref> Outright fraud and lynchings have also been used to strip black people of their land.<ref>{{harvnb|Otabor|Nembhard|2012|p=7}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|McDougall|1979–1980|p=160}}</ref>

Black landowners are common targets of [[eminent domain]] laws invoked to make way for public works projects.<ref name=McDougall158>{{harvnb|McDougall|1979–1980|pp=158–160}}</ref> At Harris Neck in the Sea Islands, a group of Gullah freedpeople retained 2,681 acres of high-quality land due to the Will of the plantation owner Marg[a]ret Ann Harris. About 100 black farmers continued to live at Harris Neck until 1942, when they were forced off the land because of a plan to build an Air Force base. The land was used freely by local white authorities until 1962, when it was turned over to the federal Fish and Wildlife Service and became [[Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge]]. Ownership of the land remains contested.<ref name=McDougall158 /><ref>{{cite web|author=Terry Dickson|url=http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/011407/geo_7329032.shtml|title=Families join in new quest for Harris Neck land|work=Florida Times-Union|date=14 January 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Shalia Dewan|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/us/01harris.html?scp=1&sq=harris%20neck%20land%20trust&st=cse&_r=moc.semityn.www|title=Black Landowners Fight to Reclaim Georgia Home|work=New York Times|date=30 June 2010}}</ref>

The [[United States Department of Agriculture]] (USDA) has long been viewed as a cause for the decline in black agriculture. According to a 1997 report by the USDA's own Civil Rights Action Team:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.federationsoutherncoop.com/pigford/research/CRAT%20Report%201997.pdf|title=Civil Rights at the United States Department of Agriculture: A Report by the Civil Rights Action Team|work=USDA|date=February 1997|page=2}}; quoted in {{harvnb|Mitchell|2001|p=530}}</ref>

<blockquote>There are some who call the USDA 'the last plantation.' An 'old line' department, USDA was one of the last federal agencies to integrate and perhaps the last to include women and minorities in leadership positions. Considered a stubborn bureaucracy and slow to change, USDA is also perceived as playing a key role in what some see as a conspiracy to force minority and socially disadvantaged farmers off their land through discriminatory loan practices.</blockquote>

A class action lawsuit has accused the USDA of systematic discrimination against black farmers from 1981 to 1999. In ''[[Pigford v. Glickman]]'' (1999), District Court Judge [[Paul L. Friedman]] ruled in favor of the farmers and ordered the USDA to pay financial damages for loss of land and revenue.<ref>{{harvnb|Otabor|Nembhard|2012|pp=9–10}}</ref> However, the status of full compensation for affected farmers remains unresolved.<ref>{{harvnb|Otabor|Nembhard|2012|pp=10–11}}</ref>

===Symbolism===
The phrase "40 acres and a mule" has come to symbolize the broken promise that [[Reconstruction Era|Reconstruction policies]] would offer economic justice for African Americans.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2004-01/reconstruction.html |journal=Humanities |title=Forty Acres and a Mule: The Ruined Hope of Reconstruction |volume=25 |issue=1 Jan./Feb |first=Danielle |last=Alexander |year=2004 |publisher=National Endowment for the Humanities |location=Washington, D.C. |access-date=19 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080916095443/http://neh.gov/news/humanities/2004-01/reconstruction.html |archive-date=16 September 2008 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>Mitchell, "From Reconstruction to Deconstruction" (2001), p. 506.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.musicweek.com/talent/read/tomorrow-s-warriors-to-mark-co-founder-gary-crosby-s-70th-birthday-and-over-50-years-in-jazz/091281|title=40 Acres and a Lie|website=[[Mother Jones (magazine)|Mother Jones]]|date=2024|access-date=January 28, 2025}}</ref>

The "40 acres and a mule" promise featured prominently in the class action racial discrimination lawsuit of ''[[Pigford v. Glickman]]''. In his opinion, federal judge [[Paul L. Friedman]] ruled that the [[United States Department of Agriculture]] had discriminated against African American farmers and wrote: "Forty acres and a mule. The government broke that promise to African American farmers. Over one hundred years later, the USDA broke its promise to Mr. James Beverly."<ref>Mitchell, "From Reconstruction to Deconstruction" (2001), p. 505.</ref>

In 1989, the U.S. congressional representative for Michigan [[John Conyers]] introduced a bill entitled Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. The bill was later numbered {{USBill|114|HR|40}} as an allusion to the promise.<ref name="Miller">{{cite journal|last=Miller|first=Melinda C.|title="The Righteous and Reasonable Ambition to Become a Landholder": Land and Racial Inequality in the Postbellum South|journal=The Review of Economics and Statistics|date=26 June 2019|volume=102|issue=2|pages=381–394|doi=10.1162/rest_a_00842|language=en|issn=0034-6535|doi-access=free}}</ref>

===Reparations===
"40 acres and a mule" is often discussed in the context of [[Reparations for slavery debate in the United States|reparations for slavery]]. However, strictly speaking, the various policies offering "forty acres" provided land for political and economic reasons—and with a price tag—and not as unconditional compensation for lifetimes of unpaid labor.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Adjoa A. Aiyetoro|url=http://law.nyu.edu/ecm_dlv2/groups/public/@nyu_law_website__journals__annual_survey_of_american_law/documents/documents/ecm_pro_065061.pdf|title=Formulating Reparations Litigation Through the Eyes of the Movement|journal=NYU Annual Survey of American Law|volume=58|issue=18|date=February 18, 2003|pages=458–[http://law.nyu.edu/ecm_dlv2/groups/public/@nyu_law_website__journals__annual_survey_of_american_law/documents/documents/ecm_pro_065061.pdf#page=4 460]|quote=However, this land was not a gift in recognition of the forced free labor that had been extracted from the refugees and the freed men and women and the inhumane treatment to which they and their ancestors had been subjected. Rather, the loyal refugees and freedmen chosen to receive this land were ''required'' to pay annually a rent [...].}}{{Dead link|date=April 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref name="enduring myth">{{cite journal|first=John David|last=Smith|url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Enduring-Myth-of-Forty/32583|title=The Enduring Myth of 'Forty Acres and a Mule|journal=Chronicle of Higher Education|volume=49|issue=24|date=February 21, 2003}}</ref>

===Memorials===
A historical marker commemorating the order was erected by the [[Georgia Historical Society]] in Savannah, near the corner of [[Harris Street (Savannah, Georgia)|Harris]] and [[Bull Street|Bull]] streets, in [[Madison Square (Savannah, Georgia)|Madison Square]].<ref>[http://www.savannahtribune.com/articles/historical-marker-unveiled-commemorating-special-field-order-15/ Savannah Tribune]</ref><ref>[https://georgiahistory.com/ghmi_marker_updated/history-of-emancipation-special-field-orders-no-15/ History of Emancipation: Special Field Orders No. 15 historical marker – Georgia Historical Society]</ref>