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is brought to you by Progressive, where customers who

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save by switching their home and car save nearly

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the Center for Investigative Reporting and

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PRX, this is Reveal. I'm

1:26

Al Ledsen. This is

1:28

the final episode of our three-part

1:30

series, 40 Acres and a Lie. And

1:33

we're ending on a topic that has come up

1:35

many times throughout the series, reparations

1:37

and the question of

1:39

what's owed. Because

1:42

that's what 40 Acres and a Mule has come to

1:44

symbolize, an unpaid debt. In

1:47

the iconic film Buck and the Preacher, Ruby

1:50

Dee tells Sidney Poitier this hope for

1:52

a new start, it was all a

1:54

lie. They gonna give us nothing. Not

1:57

no 40 Acres and no Mule. And

1:59

not freedom. story

4:01

and you can almost see it in their

4:03

face. What can I do? What can I

4:05

do to make up for this? Her

4:07

answer is simple. Reparations.

4:11

Nadia takes it from here. Elon

4:16

Osby thinks that newly freed people

4:19

should have gotten more back then. I

4:21

didn't understand why

4:23

just a meal, you know, why not

4:26

a cow and some chickens, you know?

4:28

We're sitting in Elon's dining room in

4:30

Atlanta. Much like her home, Elon

4:33

is a pop of color. She's wearing

4:35

bright florals and a bold lip. Her

4:37

salt and pepper curls cut short. And

4:40

even as she jokes, she's quick

4:42

to acknowledge just how valuable those

4:45

40 acres and the mule would

4:47

have been. Not just to

4:49

families back then, but the generations

4:51

afterward. You know, your children reach the

4:54

age of being an adult, then you

4:56

can give them some of

4:58

that and they can start, you

5:00

know, being self-sufficient and it goes

5:02

on and on. Generational wealth. Yeah,

5:04

yeah. So that's the start. That's

5:07

the start. But I think they should have

5:09

asked for a cow. I

5:12

do. Elon knows more

5:14

than most what land can mean to a

5:16

Black family. More specifically,

5:19

what losing land can mean. Because

5:22

her family was displaced, not

5:24

once, but twice. We

5:30

start in Forsyth County, a

5:32

45-minute drive from Atlanta. My

5:35

grandfather owned 60 acres of land. Elon's

5:38

grandfather was named William Bagley. And

5:40

back in 1910, William and his

5:42

family were one of only a

5:44

few dozen Black families who actually

5:46

owned property in the county. I

5:49

think he was way ahead of his time. I

5:51

really think he was. But

5:54

in 1912, hundreds of

5:57

Black families, including Elon's,

6:00

would be violently driven from their homes. And

6:03

everything Elon is about to tell us

6:05

has been confirmed by the Atlanta History

6:07

Center. They actually did

6:09

an entire research project about this

6:11

moment in Forsyth County. It

6:16

all began because of two incidents

6:18

with white women. The first,

6:20

an accusation of rape against a black

6:22

man. But historians say

6:25

it's commonly believed something else

6:27

happened. She was actually having

6:29

an affair with one

6:31

of the black men there. And her

6:33

husband or somebody called her. And

6:36

so her story changed

6:39

and then, you know, she was raped.

6:42

This was a common phenomenon at the time. And

6:45

according to the Atlanta History Center, the

6:48

rape charges were ultimately dropped. Then,

6:51

a few weeks later, a different

6:53

white woman is brutally murdered nearby.

6:56

And a group of black men are

6:58

arrested immediately, despite very little

7:01

evidence. And before

7:03

any sort of trial took place, white

7:05

people stormed the jail and the

7:07

main suspect in the case. He was pulled

7:10

out of the jail there

7:12

and they lynched him on the town square. Historians

7:16

say it appears the sheriff purposefully put

7:19

this man in the jail to be

7:21

lynched to satisfy the mob. And

7:24

the mob doesn't stop there. These

7:26

two incidents seem to have ignited a

7:28

fire across the county. They

7:31

call them the Night Riders. They

7:33

rode through Forsyth

7:35

County and

7:38

they burned people's farms

7:41

and their homes. They killed people. These

7:44

bands of white men intimidated other

7:46

black families, leaving illegal

7:48

eviction notices on their homes, basically

7:51

telling them to leave or else.

7:54

And so the bagglies packed up a wagon with

7:56

everything they could and left in the middle of

7:58

the night. Ilan's

8:00

mother was only two years old. I

8:04

think about the scariest

8:07

time that I can

8:09

think of in my life. And

8:12

then think about nowhere

8:15

near this, there

8:17

are people with guns and

8:19

torches who are riding

8:21

through your community where you live

8:24

and telling you you gotta leave. My

8:27

grandfather owns 60 acres of

8:29

land and you

8:31

have to leave that with

8:34

no compensation, you

8:36

know, and you don't go

8:38

back. And

8:42

so the Bagleys are forced to start over. By

8:46

1920 they settled here in Fulton County

8:49

in a place known today as Buckhead.

8:53

Buckhead is considered the richest and whitest

8:55

neighborhood in Atlanta and it

8:57

was affluent back then too. Ilan's

8:59

mother and father eventually ended up working for white

9:02

families in the area. One

9:04

as a cook, the other as a butler and a

9:06

chauffeur. That's how

9:08

the Bagleys ended up living in a

9:10

small black community known as Macedonia Park.

9:13

It was a modest community for sure. Dirt

9:16

roads, no running water, no sewage

9:18

system, everyone used outhouses.

9:21

But Ilan says her family was happy

9:23

there. William

9:25

owned six lots in a

9:28

small general store. They called it the Rib

9:30

Shack, but it was a combination of

9:32

a store, they sold barbecue,

9:35

and then on the weekends it was like

9:38

the nightclub. They had a jukebox in there

9:40

and people would come and they danced and,

9:43

you know, had a good time and did

9:45

all that kind of stuff. And

9:47

you know, from that they did

9:49

pretty well. So well,

9:52

in fact, that Ilan's grandfather became a

9:54

sort of mayor of the community. And

9:57

that's why Macedonia Park became known.

40:00

at MIT, both in their 70s

40:02

and both black, but

40:04

stand on opposite sides of the debate

40:06

over reparations. I'm asking the federal government

40:09

to pay a debt that it has

40:11

not met for 157 years. Nobody

40:14

is coming to save us. Who are

40:17

we asking to pay? That's

40:19

next on Reveal. Capitalism

40:30

moves mountains, sometimes

40:32

literally. It shapes our

40:34

lives in so many ways. But

40:36

more and more people are asking, is

40:38

capitalism the solution or the problem? I'm

40:42

John Biewen, host of Seen

40:44

on Radio, the Peabody-nominated podcast

40:46

that asks big questions about

40:48

who we are really. Listen

40:51

to our season seven, Capitalism, available

40:54

now wherever you listen.

40:56

That's S-C-E-N-E on radio.

41:01

From the Center for Investigative Reporting

41:03

in PRX, this is Reveal. I'm

41:06

Al Lettin. Reparations,

41:10

what does it even mean? A

41:12

program of acknowledgement, redress,

41:14

and closure for a

41:17

grievous injustice. This

41:19

is what it means to economist

41:21

William Darity of Duke University. The

41:24

first step is acknowledgement. Acknowledgment

41:26

means that the culpable party

41:28

admits that it has committed

41:30

an act that is wrong,

41:32

deeply wrong. Then redress.

41:35

The redress component is the

41:37

actual act of

41:40

compensatory justice or restitution.

41:43

And finally, closure. The account

41:45

is settled that the act

41:47

of restitution is treated as

41:50

sufficient for the purposes of closing

41:52

the books on the debt. Closing

41:55

the books on the debt. While

41:58

I struggle to imagine any... could be enough

42:00

to do this, William actually

42:02

has one. It's why he's

42:04

become such a well-known figure in the

42:06

reparations movement, because he and

42:09

his colleagues have calculated what they

42:11

believe is a final number the

42:13

federal government should pay, $14 trillion.

42:18

And how did William get to this number? Through

42:20

many different calculations. But

42:22

the first one he tried was to calculate

42:25

the value of the broken promise this whole

42:27

series is based on, the

42:29

promise known as 40 acres and a mule.

42:32

I think that there's no doubt

42:34

that there's a legitimate view of

42:36

the 40 acres commitment as a form

42:38

of reparations. He believes

42:41

if that program had never been rescinded,

42:43

around 4 million freed people could

42:45

have settled that huge chunk of land

42:48

set aside for them, which stretched from

42:50

South Carolina to Georgia to upper Florida.

42:52

The territory that would have been essentially

42:54

a coastal black belt community. And according

42:56

to his math, if you were to

42:59

take that dollar value of all that

43:01

land in the 1860s and

43:04

bring it to today's value, you

43:06

get $14 trillion. Which

43:08

is identical to the figure that you

43:11

get if you try

43:13

to calculate the difference in wealth

43:15

between the average net worth for

43:17

a black household and a white

43:19

household and multiply that by the

43:22

number of black households. A

43:24

recent survey by the Federal Reserve shows

43:27

that in 2022, the

43:29

average income of black households was nearly

43:31

$1.2 million less than the average income

43:37

of white households. A

43:39

racial wealth gap that started with

43:41

40 acres. I

43:43

think that's the beginning of the racial wealth gap

43:45

in the United States because it

43:47

meant that you

43:50

restored land to the

43:52

oppressors and

43:56

you denied restitution to those

43:58

who had been oppressed. which

44:01

eliminated their capacity to

44:03

transfer resources across generations

44:05

to support their descendants.

44:09

And so you create a

44:11

divide in terms

44:13

of the opportunity to

44:15

transfer wealth to children,

44:18

grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and the like.

44:21

And William believes the only way to

44:23

create more economic equality between Black and

44:26

white people is for the

44:28

federal government to pay reparations. The

44:31

federal government is the

44:33

entity that made slavery legal in

44:35

the United States. The

44:37

federal government is the entity that did

44:39

not give the newly emancipated land in

44:42

the aftermath of the Civil War. The

44:45

federal government is the architect

44:47

of the 20th century discriminatory

44:49

policies with respect to homeownership

44:52

provisions. So this

44:54

is not a question of

44:56

some individual bearing responsibility for

44:58

this burden. This is a

45:00

national responsibility.

45:03

I'm asking the federal government to

45:05

pay a debt that it has not met

45:07

for 157 years. I

45:11

don't want the narrative to be, we

45:13

Black people are old something, pay

45:16

up. This is Glenn Lowry

45:18

of Brown University. Like William, he's

45:20

an economist. He's in his 70s

45:22

and he's Black. William

45:25

and Glenn were actually classmates together

45:27

at MIT. But when

45:29

it comes to reparations, they couldn't be more different.

45:33

I am not denying that we are

45:35

old something. I mean, I would have

45:37

to be a fool to not say

45:39

that we had been to some degree

45:41

dispossessed. But you

45:44

don't want to discharge that obligation. What

45:47

Glenn means is he doesn't like the

45:49

idea of institutions being able to

45:51

wash their hands of racial inequity once the debt

45:53

is paid. You're still going to have the three

45:56

year reading gap. You're still going to have the

45:59

so-called ghettos. Chicago and Philadelphia,

46:01

St. Louis or Baltimore, you're

46:04

still going to have the jails overflowing. There's

46:06

structural dynamics that are going on

46:08

here. Glenn believes that these are

46:11

not only matters of politics and

46:13

government, they're also a matter of

46:15

individual responsibility. Nobody is coming to

46:17

save us. Who are we asking

46:19

to pay? You know,

46:22

we endow our

46:24

great white fathers and mothers with

46:27

omnipotent power. They can restore us.

46:29

If only they would. Think

46:32

about the indignity of that posture.

46:35

Now, this isn't how most Black people

46:37

feel about reparations. In 2021,

46:39

the Pew Research Center surveyed Black Americans,

46:42

and 77% said the descendants of formerly

46:46

enslaved people should be repaid in

46:48

some way. But

46:50

Glenn still doesn't think reparations are a

46:52

good idea, although his position

46:55

softened slightly when we laid out the

46:57

details of the 40 Acres program. He

47:00

didn't know that newly freed people were actually

47:02

given land titles, or that our

47:04

partners at the Center for Public Integrity

47:06

had identified the names of more than

47:09

1200 freed people who received these land

47:12

titles, only to have that

47:14

land taken back almost as quickly as

47:16

it was given. I don't see why you

47:18

shouldn't compensate the people who were

47:20

dispossessed. I mean, you know, but

47:23

is that reparations to

47:25

Black people for slavery, or is

47:27

that a recognition that 1,000,

47:30

1,200 have men you can find and identify

47:33

have a claim? In other words,

47:35

Glenn thinks of 40 Acres as

47:37

a specific land loss issue, but

47:40

that land wasn't just land. It

47:43

was a promise of true

47:45

independence, and it was meant

47:47

for all freed people. So

47:49

reveal producer Nadia Hamdan had a question

47:51

for Glenn. Did we really

47:53

give Black people their freedom if we did

47:56

not give them that economic foundation as

47:58

well? like the

48:00

question, but the answer would have to be

48:02

no. We didn't give them their freedom. Understood

48:04

as you intended to be understood. I'm

48:07

not gonna quibble, but- But

48:09

you said you didn't like the question. Why don't I

48:11

like the question? You're

48:15

asking too much of freedom. See,

48:17

I mean, life is not fair. I'm

48:23

an economist, they call us the dismal science.

48:25

And that's because we bring the message that,

48:28

you gotta deal with the hand you would

48:30

dealt. I mean, there is no cosmic justice.

48:32

There's nobody up here. So

48:36

would that we had been in a

48:38

country where the politics of it and

48:40

the morality of it would have allowed

48:42

for a just reckoning?

48:45

Sure, then they would have been made quote unquote

48:47

free. But we actually

48:49

live on the planet earth in the context

48:51

of real countries where none of them are

48:55

possessed of that kind of dispensation.

49:00

So it's an idle speculation that

49:02

shouldn't ask, what if they had

49:04

been really free? They were

49:06

never gonna be really free. But

49:13

while Glenn and a majority of Americans

49:15

accept this history in a, it

49:18

is what it is kind of way, I'm

49:20

not so sure. History

49:23

is not dead facts set in stone.

49:26

As we learn more about the past, our

49:29

understanding of it evolves and so must

49:31

how we address it. But

49:33

none of this is simple. I mean,

49:35

this entire series is

49:37

essentially about land ownership, land

49:40

that was originally stolen from

49:42

indigenous people, the theft of

49:44

their land and the genocide

49:46

of their people also remains

49:48

unresolved. And the task

49:50

of reconciling the past with the present

49:52

becomes even harder when we can't even

49:54

agree how to talk about these things.

49:58

When I was growing up in the South, All

50:00

these new housing developments were popping

50:02

up. Several of them had

50:04

plantation in the name. Oak

50:06

Leaf Plantation, the plantation at Ponte

50:09

Vedra, Joolington Creek Plantation. It

50:11

was odd to me to put that word

50:13

in the name of a new well-to-do development.

50:16

To me, it was like naming

50:18

a neighborhood after a concentration camp.

50:22

I don't know what the people who named

50:24

it thought of the word plantation. Maybe

50:27

it made them think of big sprawling

50:29

estates fields of green and mint juleps

50:31

on the porch. It

50:33

makes me think of how long my

50:35

ancestors spent bent over in

50:37

the sun, building those sprawling

50:40

estates, working in the

50:42

fields, serving those mint juleps, never

50:44

getting a chance to share in

50:46

the prosperity and comfort they created

50:49

for others. I

50:51

don't bring this up to villainize those

50:53

developers, but rather to

50:55

show that we may have a

50:57

common language around words like plantation,

51:00

but not a common context. And

51:03

when we talk about reparations, that's one

51:05

of the major problems. We may be

51:08

using the same words, but they mean

51:10

something very different. When

51:12

public integrity reporters unearthed all those

51:14

land titles, it gave us more

51:17

context. We are now

51:19

learning the names of those who

51:21

were betrayed by the 40 Acres

51:23

Program, real people with descendants who

51:26

are alive now, still experiencing a

51:28

wealth gap that began centuries ago.

51:31

We know this history matters. We

51:34

know the importance of documents. We

51:36

know a lot of people have stopped

51:39

treating reparations as a joke, and we

51:41

know the calls for justice have only

51:43

gotten louder. And while

51:45

I am not advocating or dismissing the

51:47

movement for reparations, I'm not

51:49

convinced that it will ever happen in

51:51

my lifetime, not even in

51:53

my children's lifetime. But

51:56

I am convinced of one thing, the

51:59

conversation. is changing. This

52:12

story was reported and produced by Nadia

52:14

Hamdan and Roy Hurst. Nadia is also

52:16

our lead producer for today's show that

52:19

helped from Stephen Reskone. Cynthia

52:21

Rodriguez is a series editor, thanks to

52:23

our partners at the Center for Public

52:25

Integrity, including April Simpson,

52:28

Alexia Fernandez-Campbell, Prateek Rabala,

52:30

Jennifer LaFlore, McNellie Torres,

52:32

Ashley Clark, Vanessa Freeman,

52:34

Peter Newbit-Smith, and Wesley

52:36

Lowry. This project was supported

52:38

by a grant from the Fund for Investigative

52:41

Journalism and Windcoat Foundation. Victoria

52:44

Baranetsky reveals General Counsel. Mr. Perone

52:46

is our membership manager. Our production

52:48

manager is Zulema Cobb, scored and

52:51

sound designed by the dynamic duo

52:53

Jay Breezy, Mr. Jim Briggs and

52:55

Fernando Mamayo Arruda. That helped this

52:58

week from Claire C. Naught-Mullen. Our

53:00

production intern is Aisha Wallace-Palo-Mares, original

53:02

vocals by Ren Woods and additional

53:05

music by Dave Leonard. Our interim

53:07

executive producers are Brett Myers and

53:10

Taki Telenides. Support for reveals

53:12

provided by listeners like you and

53:14

the Riva and David Logan Foundation,

53:16

the John D. and Catherine T.

53:18

MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family

53:20

Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,

53:22

the Park Foundation, and the Hellman

53:24

Foundation. Reveal is a co-production of

53:26

the Center for Investigative Reporting and

53:29

PRX. I'm Al Letzen. And

53:31

remember, there is always more to

53:33

the story.