BY RACHELE FRUIT
BROOKSVILLE, Florida - "I found out that we are not in
this struggle alone," said Frances Sesler at a meeting here on
March 7. "It feels so good to see so many farmers get
together. I am glad to be part of the Black Farmers and
Agriculturalists Association," the BFAA. Frances Sesler's
husband, Clyde, is a plaintiff in the national class-action
suit brought by Black farmers against the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA). They, along with other plaintiffs from
this part of Florida, went to the February 13 meeting in
Albany, Georgia, to hear about the government-proposed
settlement of their suit.
Of the 70 people who gathered at Mt. Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church, 16 stood when the chairperson asked for farmers to stand. Many others were part of farm families from Hernando, Sumter, and Pasco counties. The meeting was organized to hear Gary Grant, the president of the BFAA, speak.
Grant spoke of the importance of the fight for land. He and his family have been fighting to keep their land since 1973. "All the wars around the world are being fought for land," said Grant, who is from Tillery, North Carolina. In the 1930s, "113 farm settlements were formed, mostly across the South. Eight were all African American settlements, of which Tillery was the largest. Three hundred Black families settled there, and today not one of them is farming," Grant said.
Mable Sims, who was born and raised on a farm nearby, explained how the land was stolen from Black farmers in this community of Twin Lakes through racist attacks, including lynchings. A February 14 article in the St. Petersburg Times described the origins of the Black settlements here after the Civil War and some of the racist terror they experienced after the introduction of Jim Crow segregation.
"I am a small pig farmer," said Joe Sampson in the discussion, "and I have made it for more than 40 years by myself. But," he said, "I recently took 5,000 pounds of hog to market, and I brought back home less than $1,000. When you go to the supermarket you have to pay a big price for pork, $2 to $3 a pound, and I got about 18 cents a pound.
Brian Sesler, who farms watermelon with his father Freddie Sesler, spoke during the discussion about the discrimination they encountered at the county Farm Services Administration office. "When we went back to the office, after filing for disaster relief, they said that they couldn't find our file for 1998. What happened to that paperwork?"
Six members of the executive board of the NAACP in Hernando County were present at the meeting and both the president and the vice-president spoke to welcome Grant. Both of them had grown up on a farm and expressed shock and anger at the statistic that there are less than 200 Black farmers under the age of 25 in the United States today.
Yvonne Woods gave a moving account of how the Black farmers' fight against discrimination began in this region. Her husband, Willie Woods, is a watermelon farmer and plaintiff in the lawsuit. She explained how he was denied government relief even though the county had received money allotted to help farmers who had lost their crop in 1995 and 1996. She took it upon herself to continue the struggle, writing letters to the governor and state representative and continuing to file complaints. "That's how it started," she said, "and since then more have joined the struggle. I know we will get to victory."
Yvonne and Willie Woods, along with 450 other farmers, participated in the Washington, D.C., rally and hearing on March 2, telling the judge in the case the proposed settlement is not justice.
In south Florida Grant also addressed the Haitian rights group Veye-Yo, the Church of the Open Door in Liberty City, and a meeting organized by a campus chapter of the National Organization for Women. About 100 people attended these meetings. He was interviewed by the local Black paper Miami Times, a farm radio network, Haitian radio Pep-la, the South Dade News Leader, and the Dade Monroe Grower.
Rachele Fruit is a member of International Association of Machinists Local 1126.