The Racial Wealth Gap, Generational Wealth, and the truth about Heir Property. *MUST SEE*
During the recent events and protest for social justice, the media has started shedding a light on a lot of the issues that plague the African-American community. One of those issues and topics of conversation in many circles has do to with the wealth gap in this country, and to understand why the gap exist, you must first understand the history of America. Regardless of your political affiliation, we all can agree that slavery is the countries original sin, and it was built on the backs of enslaved people, which mean that the plantation owners kept all of the profits. Depending on who you ask, America paid its debt to the slaves and their descendants by fighting the Civil War, but Union leadership believed that there was still a debt to be paid to the now freed slaves. While marching through the south on January 16, 1865, General William Tecumseh Sherman, along with the Secretary of War, called a meeting with the local black leadership to ask them what they wanted.
Unfortunately, the question about what the descendants of slaves want or need to get ahead and close the wealth gap is still up for debate today, and the person who was elected to be the spokesperson of the black community back then was a 67- year old pastor from North Carolina, named Garrison Frazier. Now Mr. Frazier who had managed to purchase him and his wife’s freedom for $1000, decided that what the newly freed slaves wanted and needed was LAND. He told Sherman: "The way we can best take care of ourselves is to have land, and turn it and till it by our own labor." Frazier suggested that young men would serve the government in fighting the Rebels, and that therefore "the women and children and old men" would have to work this land. Everyone agreed and the Special Field Orders, NO. 15 was issued , and it ordered for the confiscation of 400,000 acres (1,600 km2) of land along the Atlantic coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida and the dividing of it into parcels of not more than 40 acres (0.16 km2), on which were to be settled by approximately 18,000 formerly enslaved families and other black people then living in the area. This is were the phrase, “40 acres and Mule “ came from, although the mule part came later.
SOURCE : “ Explained | Racial Wealth Gap | " YouTube, uploaded by Netflix, 17 April 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqrhn8khGLM.
After the civil war ended , and the Reconstruction era began, the country was still split and the south was in ruins. President Johnson who became president after Lncoln’’s assassination was a southern sympathizer, but General Grant, the Hero of the UNION wanted to keep the troops in the south to protect the newly freed people and keep law in order ( So leave his statues alone). General Grant became the 18th President of the United States, and he ordered that the government keep up their end of the bargain with the African- Americans. He believed in Civil Rights and under his presidency we saw several Civil rights laws passed and for the first time black people were able to own land, vote , and hold elected office in the South. There was a lot of resentment from the OLD SOUTH towards the former slaves , so the local governments of the Southern states introduced Jim Crow like BLACK CODES to terrorize the black population into giving up there rights and freedoms. Many black folks headed north and west in fear for their lives while the ones that stayed and fought were subjected to violence. The reconstruction Era came to an end and the land that was given to the people under Special Field Orders, No. 15 was back in the hands of the former plantation owners. This injustice gave way to new industries like Prison Labor and sharecropping .
SOURCE : "When White Supremacists Overthrew A Government." YouTube, uploaded by VOX, 20 June 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVQomlXMeek.
SOURCE: "How Property Law is Used to Appropriate Black Land ." YouTube, uploaded by Vice News, 10 August 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyn1-m3fDtI.
Other Sources: “Special Field Orders No,15.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Jun. 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Field_Orders_No._15.
