Their 222-acre farm has been in the family for more than seven decades. Purchased in 1926 by Ellis Green, Jr., Samuel's father, the farm supplied county groceries and farmer's markets with produce. It was the only farm of its size owned by a Black family in this region of southern Georgia, located on the outskirts of Savannah.

"We grew some of everything — collards, mustard and turnips, rutabagas, tomatoes, peas, okra, sweet potatoes, and beans, " explained Annie Mae Green, 75, in an October interview with the Green family. "With a little assistance from the government, we could plant it back like we used to," added the woman, who lived on the farm for 50 years.

According to several of her 12 children—Samuel, Sampson, Ruth, and Ellis III—Annie Mae Green, who died in early November, was a stalwart fighter who kept the family surviving.

Like thousands of farmers who are Black, the Greens were plaintiffs in the Pigford vs. Glickman class-action lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture for racist discrimination. The judge in the case approved a consent decree granting compensation to the farmers in April, but the first checks have yet to be mailed.

When Ellis Green, Jr. died on Feb. 2, 1980, he did not owe a penny on his land. Nonetheless, the Carver State Bank began foreclosure proceedings in 1981 on the farm. The bank refused to honor a 15-year payment plan to cover a $65,000 debt on farm equipment, and then used this debt as the pretext to initiate foreclosure proceedings. The bank put the farm up for sale on the county courthouse steps, forcing the Greens to buy their farm back from the bank or risk losing it altogether.

"One of the biggest things I knew was wrong was that the bank's foreclosure proceedings were against my father, even though he was no longer living," said Sampson Green. With little time to counter the bank's move, the family applied for a $152,000 loan — from the same bank that was foreclosing on them.

By 1986 the bank succeeded in obtaining possession of the Greens's land. In 1996, Jackie Sommers, an oil distributor who owns more than 60 Shell, Texaco, and BP stations in the region, bought 102 acres of the farm from the bank. Sommers, an unsuccessful candidate for Chatham County sheriff, is now trying to evict the Green family from their farm.

When his own tactics of intimidation don't work, Sommers relies on his buddies in the county sheriff's department for back up. As sheriff Al St. Lawrence told the Savannah Morning News on March 12, 1998, "We're gonna go out there and do whatever it takes to evict them [the Green family]. We're not concerned to the extent that we can't handle it, but we're going to make sure we have enough people to go out there and do it."

Barbara Green, Sampson's wife, recounted a recent incident. "On Feb. 16, 1999, at about 7:30 a.m., I heard a commotion from the highway, but I wasn't sure what was going on. Thirty minutes later my husband came back with policemen. 'Ma'am, get a few personal items and leave, because this house is being evicted,' the officer told me. Every step I took, they took. I asked them 'Can I at least go into the bathroom and change into some decent clothing?' The officer told me, 'You can go, but I'm coming with you.' "

From her window, Barbara Green saw van loads of officers, equipped with bulletproof vests, head gear, and weapons, hiding in the surrounding woods. "You're talking about a small army against a family. When the children came home from school they had no home. How they did us was totally illegal, including the papers that they served us with, which were from 1986," she said.

Later that morning, the trailer that her family lived in was bulldozed. Annie Mae Green suffered several strokes shortly after the experience.

A "no trespassing" sign is now posted at Snow Green Road, the main entrance of the Green farm. Sommers hired a security company owned by a local city councilman to provide a round-the-clock security guard at the entrance. To further press his point, Sommers subsequently had a ditch 600 feet long, 8 feet deep, and 6 feet wide dug at the entrance. In July 1999 heavy rain caused severe flooding on the road that the Green family still has access to. Having no other exit, family members had to wade to safety in water up to three and a half feet deep, and three of their cars were lost in the flood.

Because the family still refuses to leave their 119-acre farm, Sommers has stepped up his efforts to intimidate them in recent weeks. Family members report being threatened by the security guard while retrieving the mail, and on one occasion the guard said that he was going to get the Ku Klux Klan.

A Chatham County police report confirms the guard's remarks. Family members have seen Sommers driving around the farm with his two rotweiler attack dogs. On one occasion, Sommers sicked a dog on Sampson Green and later that day filed charges of "terroristic activity" against Sampson and his brother Ellis III.

While refusing to hear the Greens's case regarding their rightful access to their farm, the court has opted to hear Sommers's claim that he should be granted possession of one-third of the 119 acres that the Green family currently owns. In the family's opinion Sommers is trying to force a "partition sale" of the farm, in order to obtain full possession of the entire 119 acres. "That is why he is trying to portray us as violent, but we are the victims, not the criminals," stated Samuel Green.

What Sommers is doing is not only legal, it is how thousands of acres of Black-owned farm land is lost every year. Under "heired property" laws, if a farmer becomes delinquent on a loan or taxes, his or her land can be sold out from underneath them to anyone who can pay the back taxes or loan. An individual family member can also be pressured or intimidated into signing documents that will eventually result in the property's sale, against the family's will.

"When we hear about the travesty that is happening to the Greens, it seems like something out of the overthrow of Reconstruction. But in a capitalist society, money is not just power, but it has the power to buy justice or anything else that money can afford," commented Eddie Slaughter, the national vice-president of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFAA).

Like the Greens, Slaughter has firsthand experience with the use of "heir property" laws against working farmers. When his aunt and uncle died in 1980 he tried to buy their farm, but the bank would not allow the sale. Slaughter was fortunate and discovered the problem in time. A white farmer was trying to get one of Slaughter's relatives, who was an alcoholic, to sign papers authorizing the sale of the farm by getting him drunk. Slaughter ran the white farmer off his land.

The Georgia chapter of BFAA invited the Green family to their September meeting, and is getting involved in their fight.

"Our position on the Green fight is that we stand with them to make sure justice is done and that they get their land back. Whatever it takes to make that happen, we are willing to do it," stated Melvin Bishop, a cattle farmer who is the president of Georgia BFAA.

Arlene Rubinstein contributed to this article.  
 
 
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