40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks
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40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks is the production company of noted African American filmmaker Spike Lee (born 1957).
Lee chose to name his production company after the "Forty acres and a mule" that African Americans believed they deserved — and had been promised — at the close of the American Civil War, presumably to be derived from lands and livestock confiscated from plantation owners who had supported the Confederacy. In 1865, General Sherman ordered the distribution of lots of 40 acres to some freed black families on the Georgia coast, and also distributed some surplus army mules. But after President Lincoln was assassinated, President Andrew Johnson revoked the order, took the land away from the freed slaves, and returned it to the original owners. Lee chose the name in part to memorialize a society that is, in his opinion, rife with broken promises to blacks. The Production logo of this company is a parody for the Mark VII Limited logo.
40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks is located on DeKalb Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, in New York City.