Forty Acres and a Mule

"Forty Acres and a Mule" was a post-Civil War promise made by Sherman to the freedmen of the Reconstruction of the South that every man be given that for his own use (and I say his, because women still did not have the right to own land) in Georgia, primarily off the coast – the Sea Islands, and in very rural Mississippi and Arkansas.

It has come to mean, generally, the American Dream, of a sort. In fact, I almost named my little slice of heaven "Forty Acres and a Mule," but opted for a derivation of a Jimmy Buffet song instead, not wanting to evoke visions of an old South era struggle. Instead, I'll evoke visions of sitting back, margarita in hand, by the ocean, somewhere off A1A.

But, you see, that time of the Reconstruction in the South made everyone not Northern or of privileged Southern background on fairly equal ground. Lots of land, but no one to own it or work it. No money to bring back the grandiose plantation farms which had provided not only Northern climes with tobacco, cotton, rice and sugar, but provided the South with survivable income. With the abolition of slavery, and hear me: I advocate strongly any abolition of slavery, no matter where it occurs, came a problem not anticipated. Both black and white Southern people had nowhere to go, no jobs, no money and no means of survival. Whites were not included in the "Forty Acres and a Mule" provision - only freed slaves.

Thus the time-honored practice of share-cropping came back into the picture.

Share-cropping provided landowners of Southern property (which had been seized by many Northern families, as well as retained by Southern gentiles of long-standing family history) with people who could work it for a share of food grown, providing some profit, and they could live on the land without cost. It was a win-win situation for survival. The freed slaves who were offered land as compensation also had share-croppers, both white and black, to help them establish their agricultural independence. In essence, this was paid slavery. Share-croppers were not clothed, fed or provided medical assistance, as they were before the Civil War. They were literally on their own. There was no welfare assistance, no food stamps, no Social Security. This was the Great Depression, and it was a hand-to-mouth existence.

Probably the only time in old Southern history that the playing field was level for both Caucasian and Negro families.

And guess what? Our ancestors all got along on that level playing field. They were all down to the nubs in the 1937-era South, and they shared their fates, their homes and their crops. No-one claimed they were "better" than anyone else, because the reality was, they were all the same – struggling to stay alive, to feed their children, to work the land and to find peace amongst themselves. Children, both black and white, played, ate and worked together, attended small home-schools to learn some education, however little, and their parents had no disagreement with their associations.

It was a short period of time where everyone learned to get along. Then, of course, the horrors of lynching occurred, mostly in part by the hate mongers of the KKK, who targeted anyone of black descent, or any whites who would not denounce friendships or who defended blacks in any way. Yes, there were white lynchings, buried deep in the archives*. Everyone who wasn't "pure" was in danger of losing their lives to these self-proclaimed "cleansers" of the white race. Segregation was once again enforced. And once again, the South became a battleground.

It's time to put aside the blame of slavery, and to put aside the issue of racial indifference. It is 2017, and although there is still the essence of slavery in many parts of the world, there is no slavery here in America, and hasn't been since Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States. We are all "share-croppers" now, some of us black and some of us white, and some of us as mixed races. We may not work the land (although now we call them "itinerant farm-workers"), but we all work for a means of survival in one aspect or another. Women can now own land (thank you very much) and vote – although there is still a wage issue. Education, a right to work and health care is open to everyone. As a nation, we have so much more than we had back then, and yet, our race issues still carry hatred from the past to the present.

It's time to let it go. It's time to move forward. We are all on a level playing field.