This is fresh air.
I'm Tanya Moseley.
40 acres and a mule is often referred to as the broken promise of reparations the us government made to the formerly enslaved.
Well, a new investigative series by the center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones and reveal, finds that while it was assumed 40 acres was only promised to newly freed black people, the government did indeed give land to more than 1200 formerly enslaved men and women, only to take the land back after their former enslavers protested.
The center for Public Integrity made this discovery by analyzing recently digitized records from the Reconstruction era Freedmen's Bureau.
As part of their two year investigation, journalists tracked down the titles of hundreds of properties in South Carolina and Georgia.
Some of the land taken back is now gated majority white communities with values as much as 2.5 million.
This three part series, which is featured in this week's mother Jones and the public radio show and podcast reveal, explores how this land loss deprived formerly enslaved men and women of building intergenerational wealth.
The lead journalist on the project is senior investigative reporter Alexia Fernandez Campbell with the center for Public Integrity.
She covers labor and inequality.
And, Alexia, welcome to fresh aiR.
Thank you so much.
I'm glad to be here.
Yes.
So what you and your colleagues have done is really a big undertaking.
You're reporting.
It offers the largest collection of land titles from the 40 acres program to ever be analyzed and published.
And before we get into your findings, I think we should start off by having you first explain what the Freedmen's Bureau promised in 1865 to newly freed black Americans.
Yeah.
So it's really interesting because the promise was actually before the creation of the Freedmen's bureau.