By Leonard E. Colvin

Chief Reporter

New Journal and Guide

The same week the USDA was making news in the firing of agent Shirley Sherrod of Georgia,  the almost two-decade long story resurfaced of the plight of Black farmers at the hands of the USDA dating back some 80 years. Sherrod was fired  for alleged racial discrimination 24 years ago based on the contents of a misguided internet video.

Eleven years ago, after nine years of legal wrangling, a class action suit filed by the Black Farmers Association was settled by the Clinton-USDA for thousands of Black farmers who had lost their farms because white agriculture field agents denied them assistance and loans.

But thousand of farmers’ claims were not included in the first settlement of Pickford vs. the USDA in 1999. The agency claimed that the farmers who were left out did not file proper documents or none at all.

So the National Black Farmers Association filed a supplemental suit two years ago, seeking an additional $1.2 million, and they won. But the U.S. Senate, on July 22, stripped the money which was designated for the farmers from an emergency spending bill for the wars overseas. Also, the USDA  stripped $3.4 billion from the bill designated to pay Native Americans  who say they were swindled out of billions on royalties by the federal government dating back to the end of the 19th century.

National Black Farmers Association leader John Boyd of Virginia said the Senate’s action was deeply disappointing, considering that the White House had promised to push the lawmakers to approve the funding.

“This is what we call the last plantation,” said John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association during an interview featured on National Public Radio. “It’s the last federal arm in this country to integrate, the United States Department of Agriculture. They filed lawsuits in federal court to prevent Black workers from coming to work once they integrated. That’s the history of the United States Department of Agriculture.”

Boyd traveled from his farm in Virginia’s Mecklenburg County to the Capitol to lobby Congress. In 1994, he was denied loans by a USDA agent in Richmond, Va., by the name of James Garnett.

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