Pratheek Rabala

KERR COUNTY — The sound of construction machinery filled the air as Kylie Nidever walked past properties ravaged months earlier by floodwaters. Nidever’s home was among those in her Bumble Bee Hills neighborhood untouched by last year’s July 4 flood, one of the deadliest disasters in Texas history. The 35-year-old understood the draw of the tranquil Kerr County subdivision, where she played as a child in a nearby creek that fed the Guadalupe River.

A government program gave formerly enslaved people land after the Civil War, only to take nearly all of it back a year and a half later. We used artificial intelligence to track down the people, places and stories that had long been misunderstood and forgotten, then asked their descendants about what’s owed now. 40 Acres and a Lie tells the history of an often-misunderstood government program that gave formerly enslaved people land titles after the Civil War.