18:00

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18:02

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18:05

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18:07

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18:09

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18:12

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18:14

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18:17

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18:19

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18:21

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18:23

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18:26

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18:31

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18:33

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18:36

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good news is you can do something to stop

18:40

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18:44

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18:47

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18:50

oil. Imagine

18:56

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19:00

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19:03

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19:09

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19:12

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now, tropical rainforests teeming with life

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19:29

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19:33

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19:37

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19:54

at ran.org/rainforests. From

20:03

the Center for Investigative Reporting and

20:05

PRX, this is Reveal. I'm

20:07

Al Letzen. Everything

20:09

we've talked about in this series, and there's

20:12

been a lot, it all

20:14

started when public integrity reporter

20:16

Alexia Fernandez-Campbell found herself

20:18

clicking through a folder of documents that

20:21

she found on a Smithsonian website. It

20:23

was labeled miscellaneous, and

20:26

the folder was full of old,

20:28

hard-to-read records. Among them was

20:31

something that looked like a certificate. She

20:34

took a closer look and could see it was

20:36

from 1865. A

20:39

man named Fergus Wilson was being

20:41

given permission to hold and occupy a

20:44

tract of land, 40

20:46

acres on Sapelo Island, Georgia, and

20:49

it, quote, prohibited people from interfering

20:51

with the man's possession of this

20:54

land. The document bears

20:56

the stamp of a major general in the

20:58

military, and here we are

21:00

two years later. Because

21:03

those miscellaneous documents would

21:05

turn out to be possessory land titles, Alexia

21:08

would eventually learn that these land

21:10

titles were part of a trove

21:12

of nearly two million records from

21:14

the Freedmen's Bureau, a federal agency

21:16

created just after the Civil War

21:18

to help formerly enslaved

21:20

people transition into freedom. The

21:23

Freedmen's Bureau records are crucial to

21:25

understanding this pivotal moment in our

21:28

history. So are those land

21:30

titles, and yet most

21:32

of us have never seen them. I've

21:34

never looked at the possessory land titles.

21:37

Including historian Kate Masur, an

21:39

expert on the history of Reconstruction. There

21:41

are certain documents

21:44

associated with this history that have

21:47

been, like, hidden away in the National Archives.

21:49

They're hard to find. They're hard to know

21:52

how to ask for them. Like

21:54

literally, if you were to go to the National Archives, what

21:56

would be the form that you would fill out? The

22:00

only way you could see the Freedmen's

22:03

Bureau records was to travel to the

22:05

National Archives in Washington, D.C. Then

22:08

you'd have to know the exact needle you were

22:10

looking for just to be directed

22:12

to the right haystack. The

22:15

only reason Alexia was able to find that

22:17

document at all is because

22:19

hundreds of thousands of these records have

22:21

been making their way online for the

22:24

first time. And

22:26

the story of how they got there involves the

22:28

Mormon Church, a worldwide

22:31

pandemic, and artificial intelligence,

22:33

all colliding to

22:35

bring this history out of the cold, dusty

22:37

shelves of the National Archives and

22:39

into the 21st century. Here's

22:42

Alexia and Nadia. There

22:46

are few people who are as familiar

22:48

with the Freedmen's Bureau records as Damani

22:50

Davis. He's an archivist with

22:53

the National Archives. These are

22:55

the first records to formally

22:57

document this mass population that

22:59

prior to the Civil War

23:02

was not officially documented outside

23:04

of property records. In

23:07

other words, this was the first time

23:09

the formerly enslaved were seen and documented

23:11

as people, not property.

23:13

The particular records that stood out

23:15

to me or grasped my feelings or emotions

23:18

or whatever you want to call it the

23:20

most would be the transportation

23:22

records. Transportation records

23:24

are exactly what they sound like. They

23:27

show Freedmen's Bureau agents trying to

23:29

find transportation to reunite husbands and

23:31

wives, children and parents after slavery

23:33

tore families apart. One

23:36

case I remember was the father was

23:38

based in Augusta, Georgia, and he had

23:40

two daughters who were in, I

23:42

think, Corpus Christi, Texas or somewhere in Texas, and

23:44

he was seeking help to have them sent back

23:46

to them. This

23:49

man's children had ended up roughly

23:51

a thousand miles away. Damani

23:53

says finding stories like this was

23:56

a sobering reminder of just how

23:58

cruelly enslaved people were treated. Their

24:00

status as a father or mother

24:02

or children was not legally recognized

24:05

within slavery. On

24:07

top of reuniting families, the

24:09

Freedmen's Bureau distributed rations, opened

24:12

hospitals, helped establish schools.

24:14

It legalized informal marriages entered into

24:17

during slavery. The agency

24:19

not only tracked incidents of racist

24:21

violence, it pushed for

24:23

prosecutions. The Freedmen's

24:25

Bureau touched so many aspects of Black

24:27

life at the time, and

24:29

its records are the best window we have

24:31

into what was and wasn't done for

24:34

Black people at this turning point in American

24:36

history. But Damani admits

24:38

that for a long time, They were

24:40

extremely difficult for the everyday

24:42

American citizen to research. One

24:46

big reason? The agency's records

24:48

were in really bad shape. These

24:50

are very old bound volumes in various

24:53

states of deterioration. Sometimes you can see

24:55

that some of them are actually falling

24:57

apart. It

24:59

took an act of Congress to protect them.

25:02

I'm Earl Hilliard, former member of

25:04

the United States Congress. Earl

25:06

served in Congress from 1993 to 2003. At

25:10

the time, he was the first Black congressman

25:13

from Alabama since Reconstruction, part of

25:15

an influx of Black legislators that were elected in the

25:17

90s. They realized that

25:19

records had not been preserved. And

25:22

he says the reason they all learned that the

25:24

records were not being preserved was in large part

25:27

because of legislation called H.R. 40. It

25:30

was a reparations bill named after 40 acres and

25:32

a mule. Many Black lawmakers

25:34

at the time were supporters of the bill, and

25:36

they knew if they ever wanted to make a

25:38

case. You have to have records. You

25:41

need to know what has taken

25:43

place, or who was involved, what

25:45

need to be done, or what

25:47

was done, or what action was

25:50

taken to either give or to

25:52

deter. All of this is

25:54

so important when you get ready to

25:56

move forward with any action. So

25:59

Earl was part of the bill. of a group

26:01

of legislators who introduced the Freedmen's Bureau Preservation Act

26:03

of 2000. The

26:05

bill required that a majority of the records

26:07

be indexed and scanned, so instead of touching

26:10

them, they could be viewed on rolls of

26:12

microfilm. And because microfilming

26:14

a bunch of old historical documents

26:16

isn't necessarily the flashiest of bills,

26:19

no one really connected it to the

26:21

political hot potato that was HR40. So

26:23

it passed with bipartisan

26:25

support. We slipped it in, so

26:28

to speak. Congressman, they knew

26:30

about it. It was not really

26:32

contentious. We didn't go

26:35

out and beat our drums only

26:37

before non-athletes. Nobody really thought

26:39

about the application of it. They

26:41

didn't think about what the consequences

26:44

would be in the future. It

26:47

was a monumental preservation effort.

26:49

The project cost just $3 million, but

26:52

took half a decade to finish. And

26:55

it was just one step in a

26:57

very long game towards reparations. But

26:59

it was something we really wanted, and

27:01

we really needed it. I mean, you

27:04

wouldn't be interviewing me now if the

27:06

bill had not passed. The research you're

27:08

doing was made easier

27:10

by that bill. Earl

27:13

is right. It did make

27:15

researching the records so much easier, but

27:17

it didn't make them all that more accessible, because

27:20

they still weren't on the internet where

27:22

the rest of the world was. And it

27:24

would have been a daunting task to get them there,

27:27

if not for two unlikely developments.

27:31

The first involved the Church of

27:33

Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yes,

27:37

the Mormon Church. They had thousands

27:39

of reels of microfilm already in

27:41

their collections. That's Hollis

27:43

Gentry Brown. She's with the

27:46

Libraries and Archives branch of the Smithsonian. Hollis

27:48

had been working to get more than one

27:50

million Freedmen's Bureau records online when she heard

27:53

that the Mormon Church was already way ahead

27:55

of her. They had hundreds

27:57

of thousands of published genealogies

27:59

and and anything that had been

28:01

published related to local history, family history,

28:04

that's what they were collecting in Utah.

28:06

And when Hollis says, in Utah, she's

28:09

referring to a pretty one-of-a-kind place.

28:11

They have a mountain in

28:15

which they preserve these records. I've

28:17

been to the facility. In a literal mountain?

28:19

In the mountain. In the Utah site, the

28:21

mountain. It's amazing. Billions

28:26

of records are kept there. It's

28:28

the largest genealogical collection in

28:30

the world. And

28:32

among all the reels of microfilm

28:34

were copies purchased from the National

28:37

Archives, including the Freedmen's Bureau records.

28:40

We tried to speak to the Mormon Church about all this. And

28:43

while officials didn't want to talk, they

28:45

confirmed what Hollis told us. The church

28:47

digitized more than a million Freedmen's Bureau

28:49

records. And in 2015, they went online. But

28:57

we're not done yet, because there was

28:59

still one huge problem. Have

29:01

you ever tried to read 19th century

29:03

cursive in faded ink? It's

29:06

hard, like really hard. So

29:09

the documents needed to be transcribed, something

29:12

Hollis and the Smithsonian were prepared for. They

29:14

began organizing transcribe-a-thons with the

29:16

hope that everyday people would

29:19

sit down at their computers

29:21

and decipher each word. Hollis

29:23

and her team had it all set up. What

29:26

we didn't have was the large numbers of

29:28

volunteers. Maybe because

29:30

it's pretty tedious work. Squinting

29:34

at hundreds of old documents for hours

29:36

on end, trying to make out,

29:38

is that a J or is that an F? It

29:41

isn't exactly going to entice a ton of

29:44

people. That

29:46

is, until another very

29:48

unlikely development. More than 84 million

29:51

Americans are now under state directives

29:53

to stay home. A

29:55

worldwide pandemic. We had a

29:58

lot of people who had an interest in doing this. something

30:00

while they were sequestered. And

30:03

so they turned to the Smithsonian. Pre-pandemic,

30:07

only about 3,000 volunteers signed

30:09

up to transcribe records. After

30:12

the pandemic, that number ballooned

30:14

to more than 50,000. An

30:19

act of Congress, a mountain

30:21

in Utah, and a COVID

30:23

lockdown. All that paved

30:25

the way for me to stumble upon

30:27

that miscellaneous folder of possessory land titles.

30:30

And the story of the documents could have ended here. But

30:33

we at Public Integrity are adding

30:35

our own chapter. I like to

30:37

joke that the distribution of good versus bad handwriting

30:40

has been the same over centuries. This

30:42

is my colleague, Prateek Rabala. He's

30:44

a data reporter. Prateek and

30:46

I have spent the last two years trying

30:48

to figure out how to search through all

30:50

of the Freedmen's Bureau records, including

30:52

more than a million documents that still

30:55

haven't been transcribed. This collection

30:57

is so massive that

30:59

I just don't know where to start. And

31:02

for context, I'm new to this. I

31:04

mean, this is the first time that I've ever worked

31:06

with documents that are this old. The

31:08

language is different. Keywords are different. I mean,

31:10

so I had a big problem because I

31:12

didn't know what to search. Let's

31:15

stop and zoom out for a minute

31:17

to remember the world before computers. It

31:20

was a world that revolved around paper, those

31:22

loose pieces of biodegradable fibers.

31:25

The government, the military, the banks,

31:28

everything ran on paper. It seems

31:30

so precarious now. And

31:32

Prateek and I are hunting for

31:34

some very specific papers, 40-acre land

31:36

titles. But to find them, we

31:39

need to bring these records into the future. And

31:42

that's exactly what Prateek does,

31:44

using artificial intelligence. I

31:46

feel a little weird about saying AI. I've

31:48

been getting s*** for calling this

31:50

AI. Is machine learning OK

31:52

to use? OK, let's call

31:54

it machine learning. You'll hear Prateek refer

31:57

to it as the model. Basically,

31:59

he. He teaches the model to search through

32:01

all the documents that haven't been transcribed yet.

32:04

What you can do is have the model look

32:07

at a land title and

32:09

find other documents that look

32:12

like it. Without text

32:14

transcriptions, Pertique's model can't search

32:16

words, so it functions more

32:18

like an image search. So

32:21

isn't it like, kind of like facial recognition? Yes,

32:23

it's almost exactly like facial recognition. So

32:26

you can think of that first possessory land title

32:28

as the face we want the model to recognize.

32:31

Lucky for us, it has some pretty

32:34

unique characteristics. The land titles

32:36

are much smaller. They're almost

32:38

like the size of a 3x5 photo,

32:41

and they have like a signature in the

32:43

bottom, and then they have

32:45

big bold text title at the top.

32:48

By using this model, we were able

32:50

to identify the names of hundreds more

32:52

people who received land titles. And

32:55

we expect to find more, because the

32:57

model is still learning. Before

33:02

Pertique's tool, I was searching the old-fashioned

33:04

way, opening up each century's

33:06

old document click by click. It

33:09

was slow, but still effective. Together,

33:12

Pertique and I collected more than 1,200 names.

33:16

It's the largest collection of 40-acre land

33:19

title holders ever put together. They

33:21

were always there. They just needed to

33:23

be found. And

33:26

these documents are not just Black history.

33:28

They're American history. Lost

33:31

narratives of individual men and women as

33:33

they tried to build lives from nothing.

33:36

The land titles, they're just one piece.

33:39

You know, we were just six, eight people that were

33:41

like looking through these documents, and our

33:43

lens was always 40 acres, right? So everything

33:46

we were looking for is so closely tied

33:48

to property and land, and we were interested in

33:50

other things, but that was our focus. We

33:52

are hoping that by making these tools available,

33:55

more people, of course, can learn about their ancestors,

33:57

but also just understand what...

34:00

life was like in the immediate aftermath

34:02

of the Civil War. The

34:05

significance of this collection, you know,

34:07

can't be overstated. And

34:11

that's why Public Integrity is making

34:14

their tool available online. When

34:16

the Smithsonian's Hollis Gentry Brown saw

34:19

it, she emailed us to say, this

34:21

is a quote, God send for genealogists,

34:23

historians, and other researchers. But

34:26

it's not just for them, it's for

34:28

anyone, especially descendants of the formerly

34:30

enslaved who are trying to rebuild

34:33

lost narratives. I said, wow, she

34:35

has some more information. This is great. You helped me

34:37

in my quest. We meet

34:39

one of those descendants. Coming up

34:41

next on Reveal. To build any new coal,

34:43

oil, or gas project, fossil fuel

34:45

companies need permits, money, and

34:47

insurance. You may not think about insurance

34:50

as a major driver

34:52

of climate change, but

34:55

these companies are fueling the climate crisis in two

34:57

crucial ways. They provide insurance coverage for coal plants,

35:01

target fuel, and fuel production. The

35:04

company is a company that is a major driver

35:06

of climate change. They

35:09

provide insurance coverage for coal plants,

35:11

tar sands pipelines, and fracking wells.

35:13

Without insurance, these projects can't be

35:15

built or operate. Insurance companies also

35:17

take their customers' money, the money

35:19

you and I pay for car

35:21

and life insurance, and invest it

35:23

in fossil fuel companies so more destructive

35:26

projects can be built. Insurers know that climate

35:28

change is here and that they're on

35:30

the hook to pay for the damage it's causing. But

35:33

instead of ditching fossil fuels,

35:35

they're withdrawing coverage from communities on

35:37

the frontlines of climate change. Tell

35:40

the nation's leading insurance companies to

35:42

book communities first and stop ensuring

35:44

fossil fuels. Find out more information

35:46

with Rainforest Action Network online at

35:48

ran.org/ insurance. I'm

36:00

Al Lettzin. We've been talking

36:02

about the importance of first-hand history,

36:05

original records, and how they

36:07

can reveal hidden truths. But

36:09

records can also be a window into

36:12

where we come from, our

36:14

ancestors, and provide tiny details that

36:16

can feel personal and

36:18

mean so much. Alexia

36:21

and her team had this in mind,

36:23

and as they combed through thousands of

36:25

historical records, they started to make a

36:28

list. Any time

36:30

they found a land title or proof

36:32

that someone received land through 40 acres,

36:35

their name went on that list, because

36:38

they wanted to connect those names

36:40

to living descendants. But

36:43

any genealogist will tell you,

36:46

trying to rebuild the narratives

36:48

of the enslaved is painstaking

36:50

work. These people

36:52

didn't have birth certificates, marriage certificates,

36:54

bank records, nothing identifying

36:56

them as anything other than

36:58

property, and even those were

37:00

sparse and full of errors. This

37:03

is one of the most insidious parts

37:05

of slavery, that complete

37:07

erasure of people's histories.

37:11

It took the public integrity team hundreds

37:13

of hours and many dead ends, but

37:15

eventually they were able to identify more

37:18

than 40 descendants, and

37:20

they reached out to dozens of them. Most

37:23

didn't respond, but some did. Come

37:26

on in, welcome to my humble abode.

37:29

A woman named Mila Rios was their

37:31

first win. I know you, I'm going

37:33

to put some fruit out. It's always good.

37:36

And finding her felt almost serendipitous,

37:39

because Mila's dedicated the last 30

37:41

years of her life, trying

37:44

to find out everything she can about

37:46

her ancestors. And because she

37:48

already knew so much, we weren't

37:50

sure if we'd have anything to add. But

37:53

Alexia and Nadia still managed to surprise

37:56

her. They pick up the

37:58

story in Florida. We're

38:01

sitting at Mila's kitchen table at her home

38:03

near Fort Lauderdale, where she lives with her

38:05

two Chihuahuas, Bella and Chiquita. Mila

38:09

is showing Nadia and I photos as she lays

38:11

out her family tree. All right,

38:15

so that's my great-grandmother. That's

38:18

Florence? My great-grandmother. This

38:20

is the only photo Mila has of her great-grandmother,

38:23

Florence Chisholm. She's

38:25

posing with her family members during a gathering in

38:27

the backyard of their home near Philadelphia. It's

38:30

the early 1960s, a sunny

38:32

day, and Florence looks serene. Mila

38:36

was just a kid when this picture was taken. I

38:38

was probably running around, but I

38:40

was really little, tiny. I was a real tiny thing. Mila

38:43

is a semi-retired clinical psychologist, the

38:46

widow of an aerospace engineer. She

38:48

grew up old school, four generations

38:50

altogether under the same roof.

38:53

She says her great-grandmother Florence was a headstrong

38:56

woman who got the most out of the

38:58

world around her. I remember

39:00

her going out in the yard

39:02

picking dandelions out of the ground,

39:05

making dandelion wine and she would

39:07

make the most beautiful gardens that

39:09

you would ever see. We

39:12

had all sorts of vegetables and she

39:14

would tell me, this is what my father and

39:16

mother taught me. And they call me Shel.

39:18

Shel, I want you to see. This is how you make it.

39:20

This is how you plant it. This is what you do to

39:22

it. That's what she did. And

39:24

those are the things that she left me

39:27

with. Now I've never planted a seed in

39:29

my life, but it doesn't mean that I

39:31

wasn't taught. That's

39:33

not all Florence taught Mila. She

39:35

was also a storyteller, a

39:37

repository of family history. My

39:40

bedroom was right across from her, so I spent

39:42

an inordinate amount of time with her. And

39:45

she loved to talk about family. Florence

39:47

was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1889. She'd

39:50

come up during Jim Crow and went to school for

39:52

as long as she was allowed. She

39:55

finished the eighth grade, which was pretty

39:57

advanced in those days. Despite

39:59

this, she was confined to washing laundry

40:01

for white families, the

40:03

residuals of slavery. And

40:06

that's another thing. My great-grandmother never

40:08

said slave. Never, ever, ever did

40:10

she say the word slave. It

40:12

was when they were in bondage.

40:15

You know, if you said slave, she'd get quite

40:17

upset. They were not slaves. They were in bondage.

40:20

Florence's parents, Pompey and Patience

40:23

Jackson, they were in

40:25

bondage. She didn't speak about their

40:27

childhood because they had no childhood.

40:30

They were working. They

40:32

were working. Florence talked a

40:34

lot about the lives of Pompey and Patience

40:36

and that first generation of freed people. And

40:39

I would say to her, you've told me that a

40:41

million times. She said, I don't care because I don't

40:43

want you to forget. And you know, I

40:46

didn't forget. Not

40:50

only did Mila not forget, she spent

40:52

the last 30 years trying to verify

40:55

the oral history Florence passed down to

40:57

her. That's

40:59

the paper in which I was referring to.

41:01

She shows us a copy of a document, a

41:05

156-year-old marriage record. It shows

41:07

Pompey Jackson, Patience Simmons,

41:10

and the date in which they were married,

41:12

December the 17th, 1867, exactly what my great-grandmother

41:14

had said. This

41:19

was her very first attempt at research, and

41:22

Mila struck gold. It happened

41:24

during a family reunion in Savannah in

41:26

1992. So I went over to the

41:29

Savannah courthouse and I encountered this really

41:33

elderly, curmudgeon looking

41:35

justice. I mean, and

41:37

he looked like the meanest man in the world.

41:39

He looked like he really did. I said to

41:41

him, excuse me, sir, can you please tell me

41:43

why I could find the marriage records? And he

41:45

looked at me and he smiled. And

41:48

I said, okay. And he took me

41:50

in into a room where I saw

41:52

all the books and I was astounded

41:54

because me still being a northern girl,

41:56

you know, even the colored books. Yes.

42:00

annals of Savannah marital history there are

42:02

the white marriage books and quote colored

42:04

marriage books. He asked me do you

42:06

have any idea when they got married?

42:08

I said yes I do because my

42:10

great-grandmother told me her mother and father

42:12

got married in 1867. He

42:15

looked at me and said wow you're good. That

42:17

was my first document and that's where

42:20

it started. And

42:23

then Mila began to find other

42:25

priceless documents, forms with Pompey's signature

42:28

like a Freedmen's Bureau bank record from 1874.

42:32

I was so proud. I said oh look,

42:34

Papa signed his name. Papa

42:38

signed his name. During

42:40

reconstruction a black man's personal signature

42:42

was a political statement all by

42:44

itself. Pompey couldn't write but

42:47

immediately after emancipation he made a point

42:49

to learn how to sign his name.

42:51

That's it to sign his name. When

42:54

he went to take his oath to

42:56

be able to vote even though Jim

42:58

Crow relinquished that right he signed his

43:00

name. According to

43:02

Florence, Pompey was a tall quiet man

43:04

who made the most of being a

43:06

full citizen right after being emancipated. He

43:09

got married, got a job as a carpenter,

43:12

registered to vote, opened a bank

43:14

account. Eventually he bought property a

43:17

fifth of an acre. He built a

43:19

house on it and raised seven children

43:21

there including Florence. He

43:23

did all the things white Americans took for

43:26

granted but had been denied to people in

43:28

bondage. For

43:33

Mila all these pieces of information

43:35

bring her ancestors to life but

43:38

there's more to uncover here. I know

43:41

this because Mila's great great

43:43

grandfather he actually got land

43:45

through the 40 acres

43:47

program. The first time

43:49

I contacted Mila she knew none of this. I

43:52

had no idea that aspect I didn't know that

43:54

we didn't know anything about that. I said wow

43:56

she has some more information this is great. I

43:58

thought it was wonderful. You helped me

44:01

in my quest. When

44:03

I was researching this story, I found

44:05

Pompey Jackson's name scrawled on a document

44:07

that had been buried for more than

44:09

a century deep inside those Freedmen

44:11

Bureau files. The

44:13

document was a handwritten land register from

44:15

April 1865, and

44:18

it said that Pompey Jackson, who was a teenager

44:20

at the time, received a

44:22

possessory title to four acres of land

44:24

on the Ogeechee River Low Country. It

44:27

was a small piece of a massive

44:29

rice plantation near Savannah called Grove Hill.

44:32

The plantation was previously owned by the

44:34

Habersham family, one of the wealthiest and

44:37

most politically powerful families in Georgia. And

44:40

for a fleeting moment, a small slice

44:42

of that wealth was

44:44

Pompey's. We know

44:46

about 40 acres and a mule, but

44:48

we never knew actually who. Yes,

44:52

who were all those freed people

44:54

who received land, settled on it,

44:57

and planned their futures? At

44:59

Grove Hill, they were people like

45:01

Pompey, Peter McKnight, and a woman

45:03

named Jane Jones, people who history

45:06

has largely forgotten. We've

45:08

been able to prove that at least 50 Black

45:10

families got land titles on this former

45:12

rice plantation. After

45:15

I told her about this, Mila started

45:17

digging herself, looking for

45:19

anything she could find about the Grove Hill

45:21

plantation. Grove Hill

45:23

was abandoned. Let me

45:25

see, I'll show you what I

45:28

have here. She pulls out

45:30

another document. What's that? This

45:32

was given in the courts October 1865, and

45:35

Grove Hill was abandoned. And

45:38

it said the name of W.R.

45:40

Habersham. W.R.

45:42

stands for William Robert Habersham.

45:46

Mila had known Pompey was enslaved by the

45:48

Habersham family, but she

45:50

didn't know exactly where or under what

45:52

conditions. Grove Hill was

45:54

a brutal place. People died

45:57

every month, mostly young children.

46:00

Those who reached adulthood often

46:02

suffered spinal injuries, lung disease,

46:04

and foot rot from sloshing

46:06

through flooded rice fields. Pompey

46:09

survived smallpox. By

46:13

1866, President Andrew

46:15

Johnson had pardoned William Habersham and

46:17

other former slaveholders, and

46:19

they were all trying to regain control of the

46:21

land in the Ogeechee Low country. But

46:24

Mila's research found something even we didn't

46:26

know, that freed people in the area

46:28

weren't letting go of that land so easily. They

46:31

believed that after generations of

46:34

enslavement, the land was their

46:36

birthright. They had formed a

46:38

militia called the Ogeechee Home Guards. And

46:40

this fight over the land became

46:42

known as the Ogeechee Insurrection. And

46:46

get this, Mila discovered

46:48

that Pompey's brother, her

46:50

great-great-granduncle Thomas Benedict, was

46:53

one of the leaders of that revolt. He

46:55

didn't just revolt one time. He

46:57

revolted several times. This is the

46:59

court docket. There's his name, Thomas Benedict.

47:02

And you see it says right here, Insurrection.

47:06

No. Yes. And this is from

47:09

April the 1st, 1869. You

47:12

could see that was four years later. And

47:15

he still, they're still... Oh, four years later.

47:18

Four years later. They refused to give up that land. That's

47:20

right. Like they just refused to leave.

47:22

Yeah. Yeah. I

47:25

told you, I was searching, searching diligently.

47:29

In the end, the army was called

47:31

in, and the revolt was put down. Mila's

47:36

kitchen table is now scattered with documents.

47:40

She's been able to connect so many dots over the

47:42

years. And this

47:44

all started because she listened. She didn't know

47:47

it at the time, but she was collecting

47:49

oral history. There's

47:51

nothing. If we didn't have

47:53

oral history, there's nothing. If

47:55

the Freedmen's Bureau didn't know this, and if I

47:58

hadn't heard certain things, it would have been

48:00

a problem. My Greek grandmother said, there's nothing. And

48:02

I am so grateful

48:06

for that because every

48:08

single thing she told me

48:11

was true. Florence

48:14

died in 1972. She

48:17

was 83 years old. I

48:19

was the last one she spoke to when she passed

48:21

away in bed, you know? She

48:24

looked at me. She said, you're gonna be

48:26

all right? Cause I was sitting in her room again. And I

48:28

said, yeah, I'm gonna be fine. And

48:30

I saw her take her last breath. I

48:33

knew she was gone. Mila

48:38

has spent her time documenting individuals,

48:41

people who forged singular lives, who

48:43

left legacies that led directly to her.

48:46

And yet there was still that one thing she didn't know,

48:49

that Pompey received a 40 acres land title.

48:53

It makes me wonder how many other families

48:55

don't know that their ancestors got land and

48:57

had it taken away. All

49:00

these documents can help set the record straight. Not

49:03

just for Mila, but for countless

49:05

others. Now

49:08

that Mila knows so much about what her

49:10

ancestors went through, she wants to stand in

49:12

the spaces where they once stood, in

49:15

the places where they were once enslaved. In

49:18

African culture, they

49:21

say that when you speak a name, they

49:23

live. And I wanna

49:25

make these people live. And when you

49:27

see what they saw, they

49:30

see it again. I

49:33

went to part of Grove Hill. I

49:36

wanted to see what was once 40 acres land.

49:39

It still looks like a plantation, only

49:41

abandoned. There were

49:44

overgrown fields, a no trespassing

49:46

sign, and near the entrance was a

49:48

for sale notice. Later I

49:50

learned that Grove Hill is being developed into a

49:52

gated community. It's

49:54

called, wait for it, the

49:57

Habersham Plantation. I

50:00

told Mila this when we met. And they're selling them

50:03

in four-acre lots. The up

50:05

front two to four-acre lots for people to build

50:07

the homes that have to be part of it.

50:09

Just like the landings development that we visited earlier

50:11

in the show, this new gated

50:13

community promises home buyers the quote, perfect

50:16

coastal lifestyle. There's already

50:18

a homeowners association. I should go

50:20

and buy one. Yeah. You should buy

50:22

one. I should go and

50:24

buy one. This

50:27

belongs to us from the year... I

50:30

should go and buy one. Mila

50:34

is joking, but an empty four-acre

50:36

lot, the size of Pompey's plot,

50:39

sold for $250,000 last year. There's

50:44

no way of knowing why Pompey only got

50:46

four acres instead of 40. But

50:48

it's probably because he was a teenager with no family

50:50

of his own. But some

50:53

freed people did get 40 acres on Grove

50:55

Hill, which could be worth more than $2.5

50:57

million today. That's

51:00

the kind of generational wealth that the 40

51:03

acres program could have created. I

51:05

wanted to know what Mila makes of all this. What

51:08

if Pompey had been able to keep his land?

51:11

I don't think that my life would have been

51:13

any better. You know, I really

51:15

don't because my life has been wonderful. I thank

51:17

God every day I've had a hell of a

51:20

ride. Do

51:22

you think that you

51:24

are owed anything out of what happened

51:26

with the 40 acres specifically? Me? Personally,

51:28

I'm not owed a dime. I

51:31

don't feel as if I am. Me,

51:33

personally. Do I feel

51:35

that my family should have been compensated in

51:37

some way back in that time?

51:40

Absolutely. But me? No,

51:43

not me. Do you think you'd feel differently though

51:45

if you hadn't been so successful in life? I

51:49

don't know. Maybe I could utilize that

51:51

as an excuse. But would it be a

51:53

valid excuse? Would

51:55

I be able to sit here and say, if

51:58

my great-great-grandfather had been... I'm giving

52:00

those four acres, boy, my life would have

52:02

been better. I don't know. You

52:05

know, I don't know. While

52:11

Mila doesn't think she's owed anything, she's

52:14

in the minority. What do we

52:16

want? Reparations! When? Now!

52:20

What do we want? Because a majority

52:22

of Black Americans want reparations, including

52:24

those who lost land in more recent

52:26

chapters of American history. People

52:29

hear my story

52:31

and they almost see it in their face. What

52:33

can I do? What can I do to make

52:36

up for this? The answer?

52:38

Compensation. But not everyone

52:41

agrees. Nobody is coming to

52:43

save us. Who are we asking to

52:45

pay? That's next on

52:47

40 Acres and a Lie. A

52:49

new three-part investigation from Reveal and

52:52

the Center for Public Integrity. In

52:54

the meantime, to see the historical records

52:57

for yourself, we've got links

52:59

at revealnews.org/40 Acres. This

53:05

story was reported by Alexia Fernandez-Campbell

53:07

and Prateek Rabala with help from

53:09

Nadia Hamdan. Nadia was

53:11

our lead producer. Roy Hirst also produced

53:14

today's episode. They had help from Stephen

53:16

Raskon. Cynthia Rodriguez is

53:18

a series editor, thanks to our partners

53:20

at the Center for Public Integrity, including

53:23

April Simpson, Jennifer LaFlore, McNellie

53:25

Torres, Ashley Clark, Vanessa Freeman,

53:28

Peter Newbit-Smith, and Wesley Lowry.

53:31

We also had help from genealogist

53:33

Vicki McGill. For a full list

53:35

of researchers and document transcribers, go

53:38

to revealnews.org. This project

53:40

was supported by a grant from the

53:42

Fund for Investigative Journalism and Wind Code

53:44

Foundation. Victoria Baranetsky is

53:46

Reveals General Counsel. Missa Peron is

53:48

our Membership Manager. Our

53:51

Production Manager is Zulema Cobb, scored

53:53

in sound design by the dynamic

53:55

duo J-Breezy, Mr. Jim Briggs, and

53:57

Fernando Mamayo Arruda. This

54:00

week from Claire C. Knott Mullen,

54:02

our production intern is Aisha Wallace-Palo

54:04

Mares. Original vocals by Ren Woods

54:06

and additional music by Dave Leonard.

54:08

Our interim executive producers are Brett

54:10

Myers and Taki Telenides. Support for

54:12

Reveal is provided by listeners like

54:15

you and the Riva and David

54:17

Logan Foundation, the John D and

54:19

Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan

54:21

Logan Family Foundation, the Robert Wood

54:23

Johnson Foundation, the Park Foundation and

54:25

the Hellman Foundation. Reveal is a

54:27

co-production of the Center for Investigative

54:29

Reporting and PRX. I'm

54:32

Al Ledson. And remember, there

54:34

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