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like you sign up for your one dollar a month trial at shopify dot com slash setup when abraham

lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation and paid slave owners reparations he didn't have

black recipients in mind.

Here's how a black freedman named Gabriel Coakley found a way to get reparations for himself.

I'm Len, and this is Two-Minute Black History, What You Didn't Learn in School.

Coakley was already a free businessman selling oysters.

At the beginning of the 1850s, he bought the freedom of his sister, his wife, and their

six children.

This wasn't unusual. Many people purchased their family

members' freedom but didn't bother with the long and expensive process of getting their status

change legally. Because of this, many free black people like Cochley's family were technically

still enslaved. So Coakley's family, were technically still enslaved.

So Coakley could use enslaved status to his advantage.

In 1862, more than 900 enslavers in Washington, D.C. were paid reparations to compensate them

for the immediate emancipation of more than

3,000 enslaved people. Coakley saw an opportunity there.

Coakley petitioned for reparations, claiming he owned his family members after buying their

freedom, but not changing their legal status.

...