February 21, 2003

The Enduring Myth of 'Forty Acres and a Mule'

By JOHN DAVID SMITH

Proponents of slave reparations -- payments to the descendants of African-American slaves -- invariably cite as a precedent the "forty acres and a mule" that Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman is supposed to have promised freed slaves in 1865. Spike Lee named his production company "40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks" to serve as a reminder of America's unpaid debt to its slave ancestors. Since 1989, Rep. John Conyers Jr., a Democrat from Michigan, has campaigned annually for a study of

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