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40 Acres and a Mule – Film and Q&A – Tybee Post Theater
January 12, 2023
Showtimes: 11am & 7pm
Q&A with the film creators to follow directly after the 35-minute film.
Using circa 1865 contemporaneous documents such as meeting minutes, letters, diaries, journals and newspapers, 40 Acres and a Mule has preserved Savannah’s historic meeting of Black church leaders with U.S. government officials on January 12, 1865 through a 35-minute film.
The Lincoln Administration had no plan for four million people who were about to achieve freedom—until 20 church leaders in Savannah provided the solution at the meeting with Stanton and Sherman. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the future of the prospective four million freedmen living in the South. It was the first time in history that the U.S. government asked African-Americans, “What do you need to sustain your freedom?” The outcome: All the land 30 miles back from the sea between Charleston and Jacksonville was designated for settlement by freedmen families. This policy became known as “40 Acres and a Mule.”
