Some of the farmers and their family members drove hundreds of miles to the event. They came from Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, and North Carolina. Members of Family Farm Defenders, including a dairy farmer, flew in from Wisconsin.

"This is real good. Women farmers working with Black farmers," said Willie Adams, a Georgia chicken farmer. "We have to do more with family farmers to bring an awareness to America of what is really going on."

Codario told the gathering, "I've been a squatter on my own land since 1984 because I knew something was wrong. We teamed up with the Black farmers because they knew the USDA did something wrong." A bank with a lien on Codario's property foreclosed on her farm in 1984. She had been denied services by the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA), which purchased her farm and placed it in inventory. She has refused to leave her land and maintains its upkeep.

Codario introduced Mary Visconti, who is also a squatter on her land, and Mary Ordille, another farmer subjected to foreclosure. Codario and Ordille, both farmers in Atlantic County, New Jersey, and Mary Visconti, a farmer in nearby Cumberland County, filed claims in 1997 against the USDA for sex discrimination.

Visconti explained to the crowd, "I am ashamed to say, we had no idea what has happened to the Black farmers. We were isolated."

Ordille told the demonstrators how she happened to view a newscast on CNN of a protest of farmers who are Black and called the other two women, saying, "You won't believe what I just saw--there are Black farmers who are fighting like we are." Ordille explained that she has paid $370,000 on a $185,000 loan since losing her farm. "Now they are trying to take my home," she said.

The New Jersey farmers have been working with the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association since they saw the news program on the class-action discrimination suit BFAA filed against the USDA.  
 
'No justice in America'
"There is no justice in America for the Black or the poor. We went to court and won, and it's like nothing happened," said Eddie Slaughter, a farmer from south Georgia and vice president of BFAA. "No one who has nothing to lose can speak for me. We can do something for ourselves. We can come together. It's time to start looking to each other."

Gary Grant, president of BFAA, chaired the rally. He explained the ongoing discrimination faced by farmers who are Black, particularly those who are part of the class-action suit. Some of them have been protesting the aftermath of the government settlement of the Pigford vs. Glickman case. In 1997, more than 1,000 Black farmers initiated the class-action lawsuit, asking for $3 billion in compensation for discriminatory practices by the USDA between 1983 and 1997.

They reached an out-of-court settlement in April 1999 that includes: forgiveness of the plaintiffs' debts to the government, a one-time tax-free payment of $50,000, and the option to forfeit the agreement and pursue an individual case before an arbitrator.

About 18,000 farmers filed claims under the consent decree. The USDA has denied the claims of more than 40 percent of those applying for $50,000. Some farmers have faced harassment by banks and the FBI, among other obstacles.

Charlie Scott, a farmer from Tennessee, came with two other Tennessee farmers. He used to grow cotton until the Farm Service Agency (FSA) refused him loans and economic assistance. Now he grows beans and corn on 148 acres that was his father's farm.

"They gave me $50,000 and told me I should go home and be quiet," said Scott. "There is no way that is going to happen. I'm here to see that all of the promises they made in the consent decree are carried out. I still can't get a loan."  
 
'I have a right to farm'
"I put in for an operating loan this year with the FSA. The same agents, same offices, turned it down," he continued. "They haven't paid any of the taxes on the debts. They promised they would stop the foreclosures on the farms of complainants in the consent degree. But the foreclosures continue in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia. I like farming better than anything I've ever done. I have a right to farm. If labor and farmers could come together, we could get something done."

Randy Jasper, a farmer who is white, also spoke at the rally. He has a dairy herd of 100 and farms 600 acres of grain with his son in Wisconsin. Jasper and his daughter-in-law, who also work jobs off the farm for more income because farming does not provide enough for their living expenses, came with two other members of Family Farm Defenders.

Jasper said in an interview, "We will be in D.C. tomorrow. I wish we could have brought more people. These two events may not have a direct effect on dairy prices, but they show that all farmers need to work together. We are all agricultural producers. In Wisconsin we have lost six dairy farms per day for the last six years."

Jasper added, "Rallies like today are the secret--everyone coming together. The hearings Congress holds are so people can blow off steam. We've been told that everything in the economy is great except for the dumb farmers who can't think big enough or aren't good managers. But we are finding out that isn't true. Workers are in trouble too."

Farmers from neighboring counties in New Jersey joined the rally. Joe Bartee, a vegetable farmer who is Black from Norma, told the demonstrators how he faced discrimination at the produce auctions. "Last year Vineland Produce paid me $7 per bushel for wax beans," he said. "That same day they paid a white farmer $14 for a bushel of wax beans."

Marge Niedda spoke for the Farm Workers Support Committee (CATA), which supports farm workers in southern New Jersey and mushroom workers in Pennsylvania. "We support the effort you are making. Everyone together will make a difference," she declared. Niedda attended the rally with José Guzmán, a mushroom worker who was fired from Kaolin farms in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, during a strike to unionize in 1993. Kaolin workers are still fighting for a contract.

Two students came from the Public Interest Research Group at the Rutgers University campus in Camden, New Jersey. They invited farmers to participate in protests at the Republican and Democratic national conventions this summer.

Several teachers who work with Codario attended in an expression of support, as did a local politician who described the discrimination she faced as the first female county clerk in her area. A local Baptist church provided assistance for farmers who had traveled long distances. Some of the congregation attended the farm protest.  
 
 
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