In 1862, the Union Army invaded the Sea Islands of South Carolina (now called Hilton Head). Frightened, all the plantation owners there abandoned their land leaving behind nearly 10,000 enslaved Black people. This opened the door for what was called the Port Royal Experiment.
The government decided that the remaining Blacks on the island would be compensated for harvesting cotton and allowed to buy land as well as develop schools and hospitals. Abraham Lincoln even enacted a policy that would split up to 40,000 acres of plantation land among families of African descent.
Dozens of teachers, doctors, and ministers volunteered to help with the experiment. With their help, the new land-owning Blacks founded Mitchelville, the first of many all-Black communities in the U.S.
Everything was going as planned until Lincoln died and noted anti-Black scoundrel Andrew Johnson became President. Johnson didn’t believe our people should be compensated for enslavement. He vowed to restore all the land that had been given to us back to the previous white owners.
Too often, public policies have snatched the rug from under our feet. Understanding that things can politically change at a moment's notice for our people and strategizing around this truth will lead us to liberation.