What is 40 acres and a Mule Filmworks?
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks is the production company of Spike Lee, founded in 1979.
What was the 40 acres and a mule promise?
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.
How many acres and a mule?
'Forty acres and a mule', that delightful bit of myopic mythology so often ascribed to the newly freed in the Reconstruction period, at least in South Carolina during the spring and summer of 1865, represented far more than the chimerical rantings of the ignorant darkies, irresponsible soldiers", and radical politicians.
What does 40 acres and a mule mean in the Pigford case?
Symbolism. The "40 acres and a mule" promise featured prominently in the Pigford decision. Ruling that the United States Department of Agriculture had discriminated against African American farmers, Friedman wrote: "Forty acres and a mule. The government broke that promise to African American farmers.
Whose production company is 40 acres and a mule?
Spike Lee40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks is the production company of Spike Lee, founded in 1979....40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks.40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks buildingTypeProduction companyServicesFilm production, television productionWebsite40acres.com6 more rows
Did any slaves get 40 acres and a mule?
Each family of formerly enslaved Black people would get up to 40 acres. The Army would lend them mules no longer in use. In the next few months, thousands of Black people traveled to the shores and began working the land.
Why did Spike Lee name his company 40 acres and a mule?
Background: This is a company of American actor/director Spike Lee. It was named after historical event: in 1865, General Sherman ordered the distribution of 40 acres lots to some freed black families on the Georgia coast, and also distributed some army mules.
How much is 40 acres and a mule worth today?
The long-term financial implications of this reversal is staggering; by some estimates, the value of 40 acres and mule for those 40,000 freed slaves would be worth $640 billion today.
Why did the 40 acres and a mule plan fail?
In the end, only some 2,000 blacks retained land they had won and worked after the war. Other provisions existed for blacks to acquire land, but they were ineffective. Prices under the Southern Homestead Act (1866) were too high for former slaves with almost no capital.
Where did freed slaves go?
The first organized immigration of freed enslaved people to Africa from the United States departs New York harbor on a journey to Freetown, Sierra Leone, in West Africa.
What is the 40 acres and a mule promise?
Forty acres and a mule was part of Special Field Orders No. 15, a wartime order proclaimed by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman on January 16, 1865, during the American Civil War, to allot land to some freed families, in plots of land no larger than 40 acres (16 ha).
How many slaves were there in 1860?
3,953,760From that small beginning, the slave population grew rapidly. In 1790, the first census of the United States counted 697,624 slaves. In 1860, the eighth census counted 3,953,760.
How is Spike Lee Rich?
Spike Lee is an American movie director, writer, producer, actor, and college professor who has a net worth of $50 million. He has produced more than 35 films since 1983 through his production company, 40 Acres and a Mule.
What is the blackest city in the United States?
New York city had the largest number of people reporting as Black with about 2.3 million, followed by Chicago, 1.1 million, and Detroit, Philadelphia and Houston, which had between 500,000 and 1 million each.
How many black Americans are there?
In 2020, the Black or African American alone population (41.1 million) accounted for 12.4% of all people living in the United States, compared with 38.9 million and 12.6% in 2010.
What happened to slaves after the Civil War?
The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 freed African Americans in rebel states, and after the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment emancipated all U.S. slaves wherever they were.
Historical Context
The term “40 acres and a mule” was derived from Union General William T. Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15, issued on Jan. 16, 1865. The reparations movement, which continues to the current day, cites “40 acres and a mule” as the U.S. government’s promise to make restitution to African Americans for enslavement.
Why Now?
During these troubled times, there is an immediate need to protect and ground ourselves in land that we can call our own. The need exists to create a legacy for our future generations. The creation and sustaining of a legacy is one of the most important opportunities I see in the 40 Acres & a Mule Project .
Where will the campaign proceeds go?
Any contributions made to the “40 Acres & a Mule Project” beyond the needed funds to purchase the land, taxes, and tools for the farm will be made available to Black organizations that concentrate on preserving Black foodways and support Black farmers in purchasing their own land, buy the land they lease, and/or provide assistance to Black farmers for their mortgage payments..
When was the idea of 40 acres and a mule first introduced?
Hope for "40 acres and a mule" specifically was prevalent beginning in early 1865. The expectation of "40 acres" came from the explicit terms of Sherman's Field Order and the Freedmen's Bureau bill. The "mule" may have been added simply as an obvious necessity for achieving prosperity through agriculture.
What does 40 acres and a mule mean?
The phrase "40 acres and a mule" has come to symbolize the broken promise that Reconstruction policies would offer economic justice for African Americans. The "40 acres and a mule" promise featured prominently in the class action racial discrimination lawsuit of Pigford v. Glickman.
How many acres were freed in 1865?
By June 1865, about 40,000 freedpeople were settled on 435,000 acres (180,000 ha) in the Sea Islands.
How much land did the Freedmen claim?
Freed people widely expected to legally claim 40 acres of land (a quarter-quarter section) and a mule after the end of the war. Some freedmen took advantage of the order and took initiatives to acquire land plots along a strip of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coasts.
What was the maximum amount of land that freed heads of households could claim?
Sherman's Field Order 15, issued in January 1865, set forty acres as the maximum amount of land that freed heads of households might claim [...]. Nevertheless, freed families in the low country seldom attempted to cultivate land in lots as large or as regularly defined as forty acres.".
How many acres of land did the Sea Island families get?
At French's urging, Chase and Lincoln authorized Sea Island families (and solitary wives of soldiers in the Union Army) to claim 40-acre plots. Other individuals over the age of 21 would be allowed to claim 20 acres. These plots would be purchased at $1.25 per acre, with 40% paid upfront and 60% paid later.
How many acres did black people own in 1910?
Most blacks acquired land through private transactions, with ownership peaking at 15,000,000 acres (6,100,000 ha) in 1910, before an extended financial recession caused problems that resulted in the loss of property for many.
Overview
Legacy
According to Henry Louis Gates Jr.:
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 – some 400,000 acres – formerly owned by Confederate land owners, and its m…
According to Henry Louis Gates Jr.:
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 – some 400,000 acres – formerly owned by Confederate land owners, and its m…
Background
The institution of slavery in the United States deprived multiple generations of the opportunity to own land. Legally slaves could not own anything, but in practice they did acquire capital, although they were considered the lowest-ranking members of the capitalist system. As legal slavery came to an end, many freed people fully expected to gain ownership of the land they had worked, as some abolitionists had led them to expect.
War
As the Northern Army began to seize property in its war with the South, Congress passed the Confiscation Act of 1861. This law allowed the military to seize rebel property, including land and slaves. In fact, it reflected the rapidly growing reality of black refugee camps that sprang up around the Union Army. These glaring manifestations of the "Negro Problem" provoked hostility from …
Freedmen's Bureau
From 1863 to 1865, Congress debated what policies it might adopt to address the social issues that would confront the South after the war. The Freedmen's Aid Society pushed for a "Bureau of Emancipation" to assist in the economic transition away from slavery. It used Port Royal as evidence that blacks could live and work on their own. Land reform was often discussed, though some objected that too much capital would be required to ensure the success of black farmers. …
Colonization and homesteading
During and after the war, politicians, generals and others envisioned a variety of colonization plans that would have provided real estate to black families. Although the American Colonization Society had been colonizing more people in Liberia and receiving more donations (almost one million dollars in the 1850s), it did not have the means to respond to mass emancipation.
Lincoln had long supported colonization as a plausible solution to the problem of slavery, and pur…
Outcomes
Southern land owners regained control over almost all of the land they had claimed before the war. The national dialogue about land ownership as a key to success for freedpeople gave way (in the sphere of white politics and media) to the implementation of a plantation wage system. Under pressure from Johnson and other pro-capital politicians in the North, and from almost all of white soci…
See also
• American Civil War
• Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks
• Three acres and a cow, a land reform slogan in Britain.
• Black land loss in the United States