CRRES Affiliate Valerie Grim (African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University) was recently quoted in the History Channel website. Part of the History Stories series, the article "The Short-Lived Promise of '40 Acres and a Mule'" examines why the promise to give freely enslaved individuals their own land was never fully realized. Dr. Grim describes how this promise benefited only a few formerly enslaved Americans, while the majority were forced to turn to the newly established sharecropping system, a tenant farmer system that was barely a step away from slavery.
