Medium Writers Challenge Winner | Work
Black Personhood Does Not Have Equitable Access to the Work of Homeownership
My people have been systemically denied the promises of Special Field Order #15. A meditation on what it takes to maintain a house.
“Whenever three respectable negroes, heads of families, shall desire to settle on land, and shall have selected for that purpose an island or a locality clearly defined within the limits above designated, the Inspector of Settlements and Plantations will himself, or by such subordinate officer as he may appoint, give them a license to settle such island or district and afford them such assistance as he can to enable them to establish a peaceable agricultural settlement…each family shall have a plot of not more than forty acres of tillable ground, and, when it borders on some water-channel, with not more than eight hundred feet water front, in the possession of which land the military authorities will afford them protection until such time as they can protect themselves, or until Congress shall regulate their title.”
— General William Tecumseh Sherman, Special Field Order №15.
My 34th birthday was during the summer of 2019, during the Before Times. I woke up that…
