BY STU SINGER
WASHINGTON, D.C. - "The government has conspired against
Black farmers. The local plantation owners and the local
lending institutions want Black farmers out of business. Land
is power. Their intent is to do away with Black farmers,"
veteran Black rights fighter Eddie Carthan told the Militant
from his store in Tchula, Mississippi.
Carthan is not surprised about the recent disclosures that some Democratic and Republican Party politicians are members of the Council of Conservative Citizens, the group that used to be called the White Citizens Council. "Trent Lott and the others are the ones who would like to turn the clock back," he said, referring to the Senate majority leader, who is from Mississippi. "But it will never happen. This whole fight by Black farmers is not just a landowners issue. It goes much deeper. It has to do with the empowerment of Black people throughout the United States."
Carthan, who farmed until 1997, hopes to be in Washington March 2 for the federal court "fairness hearing" on the proposed settlement of the Black farmers' antidiscrimination suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). "This case doesn't end with this settlement," he said. "It took years just to get a court to hear it. It's a victory that the government admits doing wrong. But the settlement is bad. It's not even a crumb from the table, not a drop in the bucket. It does not address the behavior of Department of Agriculture employees or prevent incidents like this from happening in the future. The settlement is an attempt to get rid of us. But that won't happen."
Turned down for loans year after year
James and Gwendolyn Stephenson, Black farmers in southern
Arkansas, have been systematically fighting for equal treatment
from the USDA for almost 20 years. They are experienced
farmers, both from farm families, who have tried to get
government farm loans for operating expenses and purchasing
land. But year after year, the county agents of the USDA's
Farmers Home Administration in Chicot County, Arkansas, turned
them down.
"I wrote letters to the Agriculture Department almost every year about this and they never did anything," Gwendolyn said. "It wasn't until the last two years that we found out no one ever looked at these letters. They were just stacked up in a room in Washington."
"The county agents said I was a bad manager and did not have a good plan," James said. "Just last year I applied to buy 799 acres of farmland in their inventory that was appraised at $322,000. When I told them I was interested, they reappraised it for $379,000. When I told them I was still interested, they told me the land wasn't available, that it was tied up in litigation. I filed a civil rights complaint and there is going to be a hearing January 28 in Smackover, Arkansas. We're still fighting."
James Stephenson is the Arkansas state president of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFAA). "We'll be coming to Washington for the hearing March 2. We can't wait for this money. All farmers in Arkansas are in bad shape. We haven't recovered from last season's crop failures."
Celebrations commemorating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday in a number of cities were opportunities for Black farmers and their supporters to talk about their continuing struggle. Black farmers are still battling over issues that remained unsettled from the overthrow of slavery through the civil rights movement.
"Martin Luther King went to the Black farmers for support during the civil rights movement," Eddie Carthan pointed out. "It was Black farmers and landowners who offered refuge to civil rights workers and provided bond to get them out of jail."
Martin Luther King Jr. Day events
In Atlanta, Black farmer leader Eddie Slaughter and others
came up from Buena Vista in southern Georgia to march in the
King Day parade January 18. Many participants and onlookers in
the parade learned from their signs, banner, and fliers
that -contrary to the claims of the USDA publicity mill and the
news media - the struggle for justice by Black farmers is not
settled.
Gary Grant, president of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, spoke to an audience of 150 people in Albany, New York, January 18. The event was sponsored by several labor union organizations to celebrate King's contributions to the fights of organized labor.
After Albany, Grant was heading to Rochester, New York, to speak to students there and meet with Mayor William Johnson, who has previously stated that "these farmers need our moral and political support." Grant urged meeting participants to "stand with us" and attend a March 2 rally in support of Black farmers before the hearing in Washington, D.C. He said that Blacks, whites, and Latinos must unify in this struggle and that the fight of family farmers for their land is the "unfinished business of this country" reaching back to the Civil War.
United Steelworkers of America Local 2609 at the large Bethlehem Steel Sparrows Point mill in Baltimore holds a yearly Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration at the union hall. Some 150 Steelworkers, their families, and others from the community joined in religious services and heard young people talk about King's life and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. Many of the Black workers at Sparrows Point were involved in hard-fought battles against segregation in the mill and for affirmative action.
Local 2609 president Burt Dixon encouraged those at the King meeting to attend a February 3 meeting at Howard University in Washington where Grant is speaking.
North Carolina farmers gathered in Zebulon, a town between Raleigh and Rocky Mount, to discuss their challenge to the terms of the consent decree signed January 5 by lawyers for the Agriculture Department and for the Black farmers. Attorney Stephon Bowens from the Land Loss Prevention Project in Durham is preparing a legal challenge to the settlement that is to be heard at the March 2 "fairness hearing" at 10:00 a.m. in the U.S. Courthouse in Washington.
The text of the consent decree states, "Objections to the proposed settlement by class members will be considered by the Court if such objections are filed in writing with the Clerk of the Court on or before February 15, 1999. Attendance at the hearing is not necessary; however, class members wishing to be heard orally in opposition to the proposed settlement should indicate in their written objection their intention to appear at the hearing."
Farmers debate proposed settlement
Almost all Black farmers the Militant has spoken with view
the settlement as inadequate. But farmers are divided about
what it would take and whether or not it is possible to get a
better settlement. Virtually every Black farmer interviewed is
angry that the settlement contains no provisions to remove USDA
officials responsible for the discrimination from their posts.
"The enforcement provisions for the consent decree itself are a joke," as Slaughter put it. "As always, you can file a complaint, but don't expect any action."
The consent decree calls for establishing "an independent Monitor who shall report directly to the Secretary of Agriculture ...and make periodic written reports...on the good faith implementation of this Consent decree."
"The USDA has had at least two reports from its own Inspector General documenting ongoing discrimination in the last two years and [Agriculture Secretary Daniel] Glickman has done nothing about it," Slaughter said. "The discrimination is continuing today, it is not something in the past."
Sandy McKinnon has been farming in Robeson County, North Carolina, for more than 20 years. In spite of the two-year-old moratorium on farm foreclosures announced by Glickman, the USDA sent him a "Dear Debtor" letter a few months ago announcing they would withhold any payments he is due from the government in order to pay off farm debt to the USDA. The letter specifies the government will seize payments from farm programs, Social Security, veterans, or Black Lung benefits.
"I'm only able to farm about half my land now because I cannot get any loans from anyone," McKinnon said. "Everyone is afraid of me because of the USDA offsetting my income. If they can do that, even though there is supposed to be a moratorium, then the settlement is not going to change anything." McKinnon also is planning to be in Washington March 2.
Since the announcement of the settlement the Clinton administration, Glickman, some Black elected officials, and other individuals have been campaigning for the farmers to accept the settlement as is and end their fight. These include Dr. Joseph Lowery, the former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In the January 13 issue of the Alabama Greene County Democrat, Lowery is quoted saying, "The settlement of a multimillion dollar lawsuit instigated by Black farmers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture is a landmark achievement in the struggle for repair of damage inflicted by years of discriminatory policies and practices by our government." The Democrat identifies Lowery as the "chairman of the Black Leadership Forum and convener of the coordinating Council of Black farm groups."
Iowa farmer Gary Cornelious was quoted in the New York Times saying, "I think it takes a lot of courage for the Government and Secretary Glickman to acknowledge that people have been treated poorly and they should be commended for that." Cornelious is a Glickman appointee to the Iowa Farm Service Agency state committee.
"People like Lowery are saying it's settled," said Eddie Slaughter. "But it's not. We'll be at the courthouse in Washington March 2 to make that clear."
Stu Singer is a member of the United Transportation Union. James Harris in Atlanta and Eva Braiman in New York contributed to this article.