ERIC Number: EJ1072015
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2008
Pages: 13
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0160-7561
EISSN: N/A
"Forty Acres and a Mule" as a Pedagogical Motif
Burch, Kerry
Philosophical Studies in Education, v39 p118-130 2008
This essay revisits an iconic yet now languishing phrase in United States political culture--"Forty Acres and a Mule"--to clarify the meaning of freedom and to assess the contemporary meaning of its betrayal by the U.S. government immediately after the Civil War. Among the few citizens for whom the phrase still retains a semblance of meaning, it stands as a largely forgotten indictment of the federal government for breaking its officially stated promise to provide forty acres of land to the newly freed as the best means for securing their genuine, substantive citizenship. The author suggests that the phrase's pedagogical retrieval has significant implications for debates about reparations and for thinking in terms of reparations when considering possible remedies to the seeming intractability of public school inequality.
Descriptors: African American History, United States History, War, Federal Government, Government Role, Citizenship, Social Justice, Slavery, Compensation (Remuneration), Federal Legislation, Civil Rights, History Instruction, Public Schools, Equal Education
Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society. Web site: http://www.ovpes.org/journal.htm
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A