One of my tasks the next few days is to pull together the long list of the ways Black farmers were discriminated against. I have found myself with a curious block to doing so. The list will be long. It will be torturous. It will be hard to put together. It is especially hard knowing that there are actually people out in the world who got away with treating people badly because of the color of their skin. Yes, the farmers have lost land, property, and livelihood, but those who did the ugly deeds of discrimination got away with it. Accountability is one thing that must be instituted within the USDA and FSA. Senator Warren has written some things about that.
So, while organizing the files so as to begin to create that list, I ran across some notes that I jotted down from a phone call with a farmer on 2/15/99. I was at Abilene Christian University at the time. As part of Black history month, I was going to speak in chapel about the plight of Black farmers with implications for students and faculty and staff now.
My instincts said, "Call Mr. Farmer and tell him what's up and ask for his advice." So I did. His sons were interviewed in the documentary, but will withhold his name for now. We talked for several minutes. He was engaging, forthright, truthful, and encouraging. This man was 76 years of age at the time. He was a graduate of Tuskegee. His time was drawing to a close on this earth. He had prevailed in the administrative hearings with DOJ and USDA. He had paid a huge price for the battle. His health was declining significantly.
He said that he would like for the students to know that there is a struggle, that it is not over, that there are people in offices who are not giving Black farmers a fair shake unless someone is looking over their shoulder. He said that there were people in the Department of Justice who did not want to give. He encouraged me to tell the students to "join the ranks," "not just in agriculture," that racism is a "part of America," "it's still here," and it's "gonna take everybody," and "young folks are needed."
So, I thanked him for his time and words of wisdom, not knowing that that would be the last time I would ever talk to him. I would talk to his sons some twenty years later, reminisce about that time, and see the home place and the land that he fought so valiantly to save.
The next day, I spoke to the students in the basketball arena at what was called "chapel." I knew from experience that I had a very few seconds to get their attention. I would never have that opportunity again. So, I told them about me, that I was unprepared for what I saw, felt, and heard when interviewing farmers who had been discriminated against. I quoted the farmer with whom I'd talked the day before. It may have been my imagination, but I could have heard a pin drop. The students were quiet, respectful, and engaged. Some talked to me afterwards.
This farmer was one who shaped my naive life. There are others who did the same. I assumed that we were beyond these sorts of things. We had laws, the Civil Rights Movement, leaders who gave their lives for the movement, for the right to vote, to sit anywhere on buses and trains, but little did I know that the law may be colorblind, but people are not. I learned rather quickly that the county committee system is the best of democracy and the worst of democracy. At that level, we vote our prejudices. White farmers vote for white farmers. They do not vote for Black farmers.
So, as I prepare to create the list of acts of discrimination for the documentary, maybe writing this will help my writers' block. The information is there in those files. Just write them down. Send them to Shoun.
Yes, I remember talking to Mr. Farmer that evening, February 2, 1999.
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