Yes, we sat and talked today. It was early morning, and we'd driven well over an hour to the farm. The conversation was lively, thoughtful, intense, and laid out the destructive paths of human beings. We were visitors, the photographer, my wife, and me. We have traveled these roads before, but not this road. This road was the same and it was different.
It was the same. One Black farmer standing alongside other Black farmers to call out the indignities of racism and discrimination. As a member of a rather small group, an elite group, yet not a word that he was use to describe himself nor his colleagues. He is a member of the "Davids" who fought against "Goliath," and they actually won. "Nobody would bet on David to beat Goliath," I observed at one point in the conversation. He smiled and nodded knowingly. But he did. They did.
And it was a just cause. He expressed much pride in his own version of the civil rights movement.
Without revealing any more than is necessary given that this is a part of a documentary project and process, here are some compelling things to know.
There were sixteen of them. They have names. They have faces. They had lives then and they have lives now, and some are lived on in their families as they have passed on. There are dates when their cases were signed off by the USDA Office of Civil Rights. Yes. There are actual dates upon which their cases were signed off, when the USDA OCR agreed and verified that they had been discriminated against.
A farm home plan. A working plan to buy a chicken house. The county supervisor, all smiles and congeniality until the door was closed and the process of lining up figures started. Then he began to balk, complain, change figures, stall, forget various documents, lose various documents. A year later, the loan finally comes through to build the chicken house. By then, the white guy over the way had already built it. The chicken complex would not wait. It needed chickens to sell to us the consumers. The white farmer worked the process well and got his house. His white friend got his house. He has no grudges against the white farmer. He was working the system.
The system did not work for Mr. Farmer.
He has paid an enormous price for his battle for justice. He'll perhaps tell his story on screen. It is a horrendous loss of health, family, and livelihood. We'll wait and let him tell his story.
We sat foot on his land. We drove by various and sundry places and he told us who lived where, did what, and how these were back in the day. This is a different day.
He still owns his farm, thankfully. It was not a part of the battle with the USDA, unlike many others.
We sat today on holy ground. We talked for several hours on sacred ground. His blood is on the soil. He was made by his creator to farm.
Yes, that was holy ground, that was sacred ground.
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