The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.13           March 31, 1997 
 
 
Black Farmers Fight For Land  

BY JOAN PALTRINERI
GREENSBORO, North Carolina - The struggle of Black family farmers was the topic of the Militant Labor Forum in Greensboro March 14. Speaking was Marcus Tillery, one of the activists in the Black Land Loss Fund and a professor at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University here. The Black Land Loss Fund is organizing a regional conference in Enfield, North Carolina, March 20-22, at the Franklinton Center.

"African Americans are losing farm land at a rate of 9,000 acres per week. At this rate, there will be no African- American owned land by the year 2000," explained Tillery, as he talked about the long battle Black farmers in the South have waged against the racist discriminatory practices of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that resulted in a high rate of farm foreclosures over the last three decades.

The 1929 stock market crash heralded the onset of a severe economic depression. Millions lost their jobs and land. There were continuous demonstrations of unemployed demanding relief. The Tillery Resettlement was one of 113 rural resettlement experiments in the 1930s and '40s, and the largest African American project. "The land was set in the flood plains of the Roanoke River. It was very fertile land, but susceptible to flooding. And the 1939 flood wiped out many of the Black family farms, while the land given to white farmers was out of the flood waters reach," Tillery told the forum goers. "The farmers survived the floods but couldn't survive the racist practices of the U.S. government. There are less than 10 Black farms" left in the area today.

"Blacks lost 800,000 acres of land in North Carolina between 1950 and the late 1980's, and these were supposed to be the good times," explained Tillery.

The loans Black farmers applied for from the Farmer's Home Association (FmHA) were systematically put aside - in some cases for over a year - while those for white farmers were handed out within two or three months. "The local FmHA agent in Tillery was an outright racist, who drove around with a confederate flag on his car and his lapel. This is the person farmers have to go to for loans," said the activist.

Many Black farmers who borrowed from the FmHA were placed on a supervised Farm Program Account. In a supervised FmHA account, the farmer is required to go to the FmHA office each time money is needed, whereas, in an unsupervised program the money is given directly to the farmer who can decide how to delegate the funds. "In all my years I have only known two Black farmers who got unsupervised loans," said Tillery.

On Dec. 18, 1996, after decades of protest by Black farmers, U.S. secretary of agriculture Daniel Glickman announced a temporary halt to foreclosure sales on delinquent farm loans. Many Black farmers viewed this as a first step.

In a report issued February 28, Glickman admitted that the "U S. Department of Agriculture has been seen as ignoring serious, pervasive problems with our civil rights systems." The report outlined a policy suspending foreclosures in cases of alleged discrimination, until review by an independent team.

"The new USDA report does not go back far enough," said the farm activist. "Most of the land that was taken goes back 10 to 30 years, and the USDA says it will only look at foreclosure complaints for the last year. This will leave out most Black farmers." The upcoming Land Loss Conference will press ahead with the farmers demands to return all the land unjustly taken through the racist policies of the U.S. government. Tillery urged everyone to attend.

Joan Paltrineri is a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees.  
 
 
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