Reparations is Not "40 Acres and a Lexus"
Mansfield Institute for Social Justice

Thursday February 24, 2005,
In the Congress Lounge
from 1:00 to 2:30, join three of Chicago’s leading voices in the Reparations Movement.

• Prof. Christopher Reed,
  (Discussant /Moderator)
  Professor of History
  Roosevelt University
• Ald. Dorothy Tillman,
  3RD Ward City of Chicago
• Prof. Conrad Worrill, Dir.
  Jacob H. Carruthers Center
  For Inner City Studies

The first notion of reparations for slavery came in the form of land. General Sherman, with the approval of the War Department, issued Special Field Order No. 15 on January 16, 1865. The order stated that "the islands of Charleston south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering St. Johns River, Florida are reserved and set apart for the settlement of Negroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States." Furthermore, Sherman's order specified freedmen would be offered assistance "to enable them to establish a peaceable agricultural settlement.” The land was divided into 40-acre tracts and Sherman distributed land titles to the head of each family of freedmen. He also ordered animals that were no longer useful to the military (mules and horses) to be distributed to each of the households. This is the origin of the phrase forty acres and a mule, which was promised to each freedman's family but not delivered.

The event is free and open to the entire Roosevelt University community.
Presented by the Mansfield Institute for Social Justice for more details contact Heather Dalmage, Dir 312-341-3692.