One last word on reparations for slavery? I'm a professional researcher who, for the past year or so, has been following this often controversial issue. Across the country, most white Americans are vehemently against reparations of any sort. Hell, you mention a mere apology and their shorts get all knotted.
History buffs out, are you familiar with the Homestead Act of 1862? What about the Southern Homestead Act of 1866?
In this first act, Congress literally gave away more than 270 million acres of land to move more than 2 million white Americans -- 160 acres per person or family -- free. The only stipulation was that they had to "homestead" the land for five years, and it would be theirs.
Imagine that -- 160 acres of land, free! And they didn't even have to be U.S. citizens, only working on becoming one. This act was enacted Jan. 1, 1863, the same day President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves. The Homestead Act was repealed around 1976, more than 100 years later.
The Southern Homestead Act granted ex-slaves or freedmen 40 acres, hence the phrase "40 acres and a mule" was born. Because of this act, some ex-slaves did indeed receive a few southern acres, which were eventually returned to the pardoned Confederates and the ex-slaves evicted from the land. Only three years later, Congress rescinded this act.
America preferred to keep most of my ancestors sharecroppers for another 100 years. The rest is history.
After 200-plus years of inhumane slavery, after 200-plus years of providing hard, free labor, they gave my ancestors nothing -- nothing but 100-plus more years of hate, black codes, Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan, poverty, oppression, segregation, fear and more hate. Enough? I ask you: Would black America, no, would America as a whole be a better nation if they had indeed given us the 40 acres as promised? Hell, right now I'd take an acre and a chicken.
If your readers would like to learn more about these homestead acts and other facts on the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, please refer them to the Congressional Record, 1861-1869.
These amazing documents provide you -- word for word -- with all the debates and actions that occurred in the U.S. Congress. Here you will find the real mood of our country during this tumultuous time.
