40 Acres and a Lie Part 3
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
4.7 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 29 June 2024
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The loss of land for Black Americans started with the government’s betrayal of its 40 acres and a mule promise – and it has continued for decades.
Today, researchers are unearthing the details of Black land loss long after emancipation, and local governments across the country are finally asking: Can we repair a wealth gap for Black Americans that is rooted in slavery? And how?
This week on Reveal, we explore the renewed fight for reparations.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey it's Al and this is the last episode of our three-part series and the last time I'll ask you to donate for a while at least. To do this type of deep reporting and deep research, well it costs a lot of money and as a nonprofit newsroom |
| 0:15.8 | we are depending on the support of listeners like you. If you've already |
| 0:19.8 | donated I just want to thank you personally for your generosity. If you haven't please |
| 0:25.3 | donate now because we need you. Your donations keep us strong and able to |
| 0:30.4 | continue providing rigorous reporting that you've come to respect. |
| 0:34.8 | Please give today, it's easy, just text the word donate to 88857 reveal. |
| 0:41.2 | That's 888, 577 3832 again just text the word donate to 888 577 3832 and thanks And thanks. From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is reveal. I Al Lettson. This is the final episode of our three-part |
| 1:07.3 | series 40 acres and a lie and we're ending on a topic that has come up many times throughout the series, |
| 1:14.2 | reparations, and the question of what's owed. |
| 1:18.0 | Because that's what 40 acres in a mule has come to symbolize an unpaid debt. |
| 1:24.6 | In the iconic film Buck and the preacher, Ruby D tells Sydney Portier this hope for a new start. |
| 1:31.2 | It was all a lie. |
| 1:32.3 | They don't give us nothing, not no 40 acres and no mule, and not freedom |
| 1:36.8 | neither. You'll find these same kinds of scenes in the made-for- TV mini-series, the autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Roots, and Freedom's Road, starring The Great Mohammed Ali. |
| 1:48.6 | Sure I speak for all the Negroes here. They just want a little farm, a few acres of land what they can put in and |
| 1:56.6 | plant and take out their own crops and feed themselves and their families. |
| 2:02.7 | That's all they want. |
| 2:06.6 | This land represents the government's failure |
| 2:09.3 | to give black people a fair shot. |
| 2:11.9 | In a country that enslaved them for more than 200 years. |
| 2:15.2 | Who will pay reparations on my soul? The phrase 40 acres and a mule has stuck around |
| 2:21.7 | because that injustice has never been forgotten. |
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