Top Three Lies About ‘40 Acres And A Mule’

Black History Year

PushBlack

History, Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2025

⏱️ 3 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

40 Acres and a Mule is the U.S.'s most famous attempt at reparations. Thousands of freed people actually received their 40 acres, but the government snatched it back quicker than they could say heehaw. What happened? _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a month, but every dollar makes a difference. If this episode moved you, share it with your people! Thanks for supporting the work. The production team for this podcast includes Cydney Smith, Len Webb, and Lilly Workneh. Our editors are Lance John and Avery Phillips from Gifted Sounds Network. Julian Walker serves as executive producer." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:33.1	40 acres in a mule is the United States most famous attempt at reparations.
0:40.1	Thousands of free people actually received their 40 acres, but the government snatched it back quicker than they could say he-haw! What happened?
0:50.2	I'm Len, and this is two-minute black Black History, what you didn't learn in school.
1:08.5	Forty acres in a mule was supposed to give formerly enslaved people the resources to build independent lives following the Civil War.
1:17.6	It was nothing but lives.
1:20.0	It's not widely known that hundreds of our people received titles to land plots between 4 and 40 acres on islands along the coastline of Georgia, South
1:31.7	Carolina, and Northern Florida. Freed folks, established communities, built homes, created local
1:38.4	governments and a militia and began farming the land. But their black utopia didn't last long.
1:46.0	Within a year, the government took back most of the land
1:50.1	and returned it to former enslavers.
1:53.8	And the order didn't mention mules,
1:56.4	even though some formerly enslaved people received them.
2:00.2	Regardless, our people tapped into centuries of indigenous agricultural knowledge
2:05.7	to tend to their lands without mules or machinery so that they could keep providing for
2:10.6	their families and communities.
2:13.4	Forty acres and a mule wasn't a freedom picket.
2:27.4	Without land of their own, millions resorted to work on former plantations as sharecroppers, an exploitative system, not much better than slavery. While we must continue fighting for what we're owed, broken promises ain't never broke us.
2:43.9	Together, we use the power and resources to determine our own futures in every way.
2:50.3	In order to move towards the future, we've got to look to the past.
2:54.3	This has been two-minute Black History, a podcast by Push Black.
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