"Members of the press, community leaders, and citizens: My name is Welldone J, and I stand before you today at the crossroads of power to issue a formal demand to Donald J. Trump for the immediate restitution of land historically stolen from Black Americans.

We are not here to ask for favors; we are here to collect an outstanding debt. In 1865, General William Tecumseh Sherman issued Special Field Orders No. 15, promising 40 acres of tillable land to newly freed Black families. That promise was unlawfully rescinded by executive order. For the next century, that federal betrayal was repeated at the local level through the weaponization of eminent domain under federal urban renewal directives. 

Stands a city built on that very exploitation. Just blocks from where I am due to speak, the city of Raleigh utilized federal funds under Title I of the Housing Act of 1949 to systematically bulldoze the historic Fourth Ward between 1968 and 1971. They erased over 160 acres of thriving Black equity, displacing 1,600 residents and demolishing 60 Black-owned businesses. Today, modern municipal monuments like the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts and the multi-lane concrete of the Dawson-McDowell connector sit directly on top of the stolen generational wealth of Manly’s Homestead, Cannon Lands, and Hayti. 

Exercising our constitutional right under the First Amendment, we launch a formal petition to reclaim our heritage. We demand federal intervention, direct land grants, and financial restitution for the descendants of those displaced in Raleigh and across this nation. We are mobilizing the public to sign this petition, and we are formally requesting an immediate, direct meeting with Donald J. Trump to hand-deliver these signatures and present our actionable framework for land restitution. The time to settle this account is now."