Reconstructed: In Search of the Promised Land (2022)

<p>In 1865, General William Tecumseh Sherman asked a group of African Americans in Georgia what they needed most to start their new lives as free people. The answer: land. </p><p>This led to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/04/15/40-acres-mule-slavery-reparations/" target="_blank">Sherman’s order</a> that every Black family in the region receive <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/slavery-reparations-federal-goverations-looks-2021-rcna900" target="_blank">40 acres</a>, and an Army mule if they liked. It was a promise the government decided not to keep, but where the government failed, the newly freed made their own way. </p><p>In the second episode of “Reconstructed,” Trymaine Lee visits <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/south-carolina/articles/2021-02-15/promised-land-a-place-to-call-home" target="_blank">Promised Land</a>. Founded just after the Civil War in the Upcountry region, Promised Land, South Carolina was self-sufficient, with a church, school, and farms to nourish its people’s mind and body. Trymaine talks to Reverend Willie Neal Norman Jr. and Elestine Smith Norman, a couple who can trace their Promised Lands roots back over a century. </p><p>And <i>Into America </i>travels to rural Georgia to learn about a group of 19 families who bought <a href="https://thefreedomgeorgiainitiative.com/" target="_blank">several hundred acres</a> in 2020 with the dream of creating a new town: Freedom. </p><p>(Original release date: February 10, 2022)</p><p>Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at <a href="mailto:intoamerica@nbcuni.com" target="_blank">intoamerica@nbcuni.com.</a></p><p>For a transcript, please visit <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica" target="_blank">https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica</a>.</p><p><strong>For more: </strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.msnbc.com/podcast/how-reconstruction-led-birth-black-nation-n1288515" target="_blank">Reconstructed: Birth of a Black Nation</a></li><li><a href="https://www.msnbc.com/podcast/into-america/recon