Hi Revealer,

Mila Rios was at her home in Florida when she got an email from a reporter who told her something she’d never known before. Shortly after emancipation, her great-great-grandfather had received land on the very plantation where he was once enslaved. One state over in Georgia, the same reporter would tell Linda Brown that the affluent, majority-White community where she lives was once a self-governing colony of newly freed Black people. 

These were educated women who knew their histories well, but this still managed to surprise them. Especially when they learned that the US government was responsible for giving—and then taking back—this land. 

These are the hidden stories of 40 Acres and a Lie, a three-part audio series with reporting by the Center for Public Integrity that corrects the record on an infamous government program. It’s work that I’m proud to have been a part of, and I’m writing today to ask you for a year-end gift to Reveal, because we can’t do our work without the support of listeners like you.
 

Before working on this story, I thought I knew the history of “40 acres and a mule.” It's a common belief that the federal government promised land to formerly enslaved people after emancipation, but the program never got off the ground. 

The truth is even more disturbing. Because the federal government did give freedmen and women acres of land from South Carolina to upper Florida. It did this formally, using what are known as possessory land titles. Then, the government took all that land back—and returned it to former enslavers. 

When Linda Brown learned this, she had one question: “The descendants…do they want it back?”

Our investigation, which included several articles on MotherJones.com and a searchable database, uncovered the names of 1,250 Black men and women who received these titles—the largest such collection ever compiled. Reporters analyzed troves of handwritten Reconstruction-era records and created an AI tool so families and historians can continue the search. One leading genealogist called it a “godsend.” 

It’s through candid interviews with descendants of the formerly enslaved and of former enslavers that 40 Acres and a Lie comes alive. Time and again, reporters were asked to turn off their mics—an apt metaphor for a country that continues to avoid discussing reparations. 

For many advocates, it is a long game reliant on fragile government records to find proof of not only what was given and taken away, but to whom. This groundbreaking two-year project revolves around one central question: What’s owed?

As you can imagine, investigations like this are time-consuming and expensive. We’re only able to produce this kind of journalism because of people like you. If you value journalism that corrects the records of both past and present, my hope is that you’ll donate today.

A recurring monthly donation gives us a steady and reliable source of funding that can help us plan our long-term investigations. That’s a rarity in nonprofit news. 

Please don't wait. 

Thank you,
Nadia Hamdan
Producer
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting