40 Acres and a Mule

After Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, millions of enslaved people in Confederate territory were freed. This raised the question of what was to happen to them now that they were free. In Savannah, Georgia, a group of Black leaders met to discuss this very issue. This meeting led to an order to distribute land taken from the confederacy and some army mules to local Black people. But the promise was taken back. This led to the phrase “40 acres and a mule,” a phrase historically taken to symbolize the broken promises made by the U.S. government to America’s Black population in the post-war years. In this story, several historians are interviewed about this famous meeting in Savannah. They detail the historical context for the meeting, the details of the conversation, the resulting field order, and the reasons behind why the order was later taken back.