Black History: Special Delivery!!

40 acres

“Forty Acres and a Mule” refers to an 1865 promise many formerly enslaved African Americans felt that the United States government had made to them at the close of the Civil War when Union General George T. Sherman ordered that lands confiscated from confederate landowners be redistributed be given to the formerly enslaved. As the Union Army marched through the south, many blacks followed them in order to flee enslavement. Sherman’s decision to re-assign the confiscated lands came after he met with a group of 20 black ministers led by baptist minister Garrison Frazier. Sherman asked the group what they wanted for their people and Fraizer told him that people needed land to farm in orderto make a living. Sherman authorized the redistribution of lands under “Special Field Order No. 15”.

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