40 Acres and a Mule

[Keith Broaders]

Forty acres and a mule was part of Special Field Orders No. 15, a wartime order proclaimed by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman on January 16, 1865, during the American Civil War, to allot land to some freed families, in plots of land no larger than 40 acres (16 ha).

The Federal Government currently owns over 600 million acres of land in the states and could transfer a portion of that land to the families of the descendants of formerly enslaved individuals. =