Juneteenth, 40 Acres and a Mule and Other Broken Promises to African Americans

You’ve heard the phrase 40 Acres and a Mule, but don’t know where in history it comes from?

With the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery in Union States, the question became how to help newly freed people integrate into the rest of society. In January 1865, Union General William T. Sherman, most famous for his ‘March to the Sea’ from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia, announced his Special Field Order 15, which suggested giving 40 acres of land to each Black family along the coast. The “mule” part came later when some families received leftover mules from soldiers.

Sherman’s order did not last long. President Andrew Johnson quickly overturned the order, taking the land from Black families and returning it to slave owners.

Right after the Civil War, America promised to do better by Black folks. This period from 1865 to 1877 was known as Reconstruction. The US government proposed plans, laws, and government systems which aimed to help integrate formerly enslaved people into society, and for a short period, it worked.

With the 13th Amendment, African Americans became citizens and enjoyed some of the perks of citizenship including the right to vote and the right to marry. The Equal Justice Initiative reports 16 Black people were elected to Congress, over 600 were elected to state legislatures, and even more held offices locally.

It seemed like America was ready to move past slavery and rebuild a nation which would represent all Americans. Reconstruction was seen as a political success until federal troops were pulled out of the south in 1877, and Jim Crow laws were passed. During this time, Black Americans throughout the country were denied their right to vote and more than 4,000 Black Americans were lynched, reports The Equal Justice Initiative.

One of the most important Supreme Court cases in American history is that of Plessy vs. Ferguson. Homer Plessy, who was only one-eighth Black, was arrested after sitting in a “white compartment” of a train, according to the National archives.

Plessy took his case all the way to the Supreme court in 1896. In a seven to one vote, “separate but equal” was constitutionally ratified. Black people were promised the right to full citizenship through the 14th Amendment, but “separate but equal” provided justification for racial discrimination in all aspects of American life. As long as there was a “Black” school for every “white” one, segregation was allowed— even if that Black school had little to no resources.

This historic case legalized segregation, and the ruling stood strong until Brown vs. The Board of Education in 1954.

During the height of the Civil Rights Movement, a Kansas City minister named Oliver Brown filed a class action lawsuit after his Black daughter was not allowed to attend an all white school.

The case reached The Supreme Court in 1954. Then lawyer, Thurgood Marshall argued “separate but equal” education had negative effects on Black students with limited resources, and with that, The Supreme Court banned segregation in public schools.

Like most decisions concerning race, the 1954 ruling did not go over well with white Americans who feared integration. Black students attempting to attend white schools were met with violence, death threats, and harassment. Soon after the ruling, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called in the National Guard to prevent nine Black students from attending their local white high school. These nine students would be remembered as the Little Rock Nine. Today, public schools in the United States are more segregated than ever.

More than one million Black soldiers fought during World War II under the Double V campaign. According to The National Museum of African American history and culture, the campaign promoted the idea of fighting oppression overseas and then tackling Jim Crow and racial oppression in the US. The campaign gave African Americans a sense of American pride and hope for a desegregated future.

Once the war was over and soldiers returned home, this hope was quickly diminished. Black veterans were harassed and killed for wearing their uniforms in public. Even government assistance from the GI Bill of 1944, which was established to help WWII veterans reacclimate into American society, was denied to Black soldiers.

Even in the middle of the Great Depression, the US government still found a way to exclude Black Americans. According to Britannica, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was a two fold program designed to pull the nation out of the Great Depression by providing government assistance and persuading Black and brown voters to align more with the Democratic party.

His plan worked. Today, 83 percent of Black voters are democrats, reports the Pew Research Center, but what was the catch?

The fine print of the New Deal did not protect Black people as they hoped. Working class Black folk were cut out of government programs like social security, according to The Rockefeller Foundation.

Instead of helping all Americans, the New Deal helped to widen the economic gap between white and Black America.

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks died from cervical cancer at age 31. She had been a patient at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and it wasn’t until decades later when it was discovered that her cells were sold to researchers without her or her family’s consent, according to John Hopkins Medicine.

Lacks’ cells, now known as “HeLa” cells, have been used as a scientific research tool to create vaccines and conduct research on cancer– even helping with the COVID-19 vaccine. This was done without her family knowledge.

In 2023, her family finally reached a settlement with the biotech company accused of stealing Lacks’ cells, reports AP News.

Affirmative Action as we know it today began in 1961 as President John F. Kennedy’s attempt to “ensure all job applicants and employees were treated equally, regardless of race, creed, color or national origin,” according to History.com 

Affirmative Action helped get minorities, especially Black people and women, through doors that otherwise would be shut in their faces.

In 2023, Affirmative Action was deemed “unconstitutional” and unnecessary, despite continued concerns over lack of diversity and inclusion in collegiate and professional spaces, according to the Pew Research Center.

Forty acres and a mule was the start of reparations for formerly enslaved Americans and their descendants. Since then, there have been many attempts to collect reparations, including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson recently launching a task force to “study and examination of all policies that have harmed Black Chicagoans” from slavery to now, reports Time.

The interesting thing is the US government has awarded reparations to other minority groups like the Japanese after World War II, according to the National World War II Museum. This is proof that America is indeed capable of acknowledging its wrongdoings and righting the wrongs of the past. For Black Americans, however, this promise remains unfulfilled.