Press Release for the Black Farmer versus USDA Documentary

 

LETTER TO THE BIDEN/HARRIS CAMPAIGN

 LETTER TO THE BIDEN/HARRIS CAMPAIGN

September 16, 2020

Subject: Discovery of Significant Information

Only days after we released our “Open Letter to Vice President Joe Biden,” September 6, 2020, we received a copy of the letter from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law dated January 9, 2009. We were shocked that this letter affirms the legitimacy of the work that we have been trying to accomplish with the Biden/Harris campaign for months.

 This letter clearly highlights a legacy of discriminatory actions by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). These include areas of farm loans and benefit programs along with “outright displays of bias against minorities and minorities and women, especially in the county-level offices of USDA.” Given this legacy within the USDA and its challenges, the committee made four recommendations: “(1) a moratorium on foreclosures against minority and women farmers with pending complaints, (2) a requirement that county office interactions with farmers be documented; (3) a mandate to generate better data on socially disadvantaged farmers: and (4) establishment of a minority farmer advisory committee,” all of which were spelled out in the 2008 farm bill. If the administrations had followed the edicts of the farm bill, many of the problems of USDA civil rights would have been resolved.

The author of the letter concludes, “It is appalling that any American today should still face the kind of entrenched discrimination at the hands of a Federal government agency that minorities and women face when dealing with the USDA.” The author predicts that “unless the foreclosure moratorium is implemented immediately, more of these farmers will lose their farms.”

The problem is we have too many sitting in a room planning the destruction of other peoples’ lives instead of improving them. Where was the rush to fix the problems addressed in this letter....by the Vilsack administration?

We absolutely agree with the Lawyers’ Committee addressing key strategies for changing the systemic racial and gender inequality at the USDA. History tells us that their appeal landed on deaf ears. President after president, congress after congress, secretary after secretary, and lastly, election after election, civil rights at USDA remains dysfunctional. Our demands for justice at USDA are further justified as a result of this letter.

We appealed to the Biden/Harris Campaign to adopt the civil rights fixes in the Warren and Sanders plans. However, after many months of meetings this recommendation was not taken seriously. To add salt to the wound, you stated that our request to address Black farmer issues was unconstitutional.

The Biden/Harris Campaign shows an unwillingness to address issues that could change the course of USDA. Warren and Sanders listened to Black farmers, urban farmers, and their advocates and produced comprehensive strategies that would fix USDA civil rights once and for all. They seemed to have understood the gravity of the injustices done to Black farmers. They understood the need for systemic changes at USDA…. not putting a band-aid on a cancer.

We want the Biden/Harris Campaign to implement the recommendations per the Lawyers’ Committee as well as the Warren and Sanders Plans.

That said:

·         What actions will you be taking regarding this newly surfaced letter from the Lawyers Committee?

·         What is the relevance/connection in USDA 2009 and today’s USDA’s civil rights?

·         What impact, if any, does the Lawyers Committee letter have on your “plan” for fixing systemic discrimination at USDA?

This widespread racism and sexism have become a social justice issue which cannot be side-stepped with your sudden silence. Is your silence the punishment for speaking the truth regarding USDA civil rights?

This is our appeal for justice, dignity, and respect. This is for the living and for those who died waiting for justice from USDA.

Black Lives Matter,

Lawrence Lucas, President Emeritus

USDA Coalition of Minority Employees

www.agcoalition.org

Justice for Black Farmers

justice4bf@gmail.com

856-910-2399

CC: Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

        Others

Worlds Still Colliding

This morning my wife and I do what we normally do on Sunday mornings at our house. We worship online with our church family here in Denison, then we listened in on our old church home in Ada, OK, and then we enjoyed the worshipful music from The Hills Church in Ft. Worth, and then wrapped it up with an old, old church of ours, the Highland Church in Memphis, TN. We don't always do that much worship time with other churches, but we did today and it was rich.

Why am I sharing this with you? Here's why. I found myself terribly preoccupied with what is going on in the world, brutality, injustices of all sorts, BLM movement and who loves it and who despises it, and other things. I was especially burdened by what is happening on the political scene. Our current president does not have a civil rights plan, and he does not have a workable plan for farmers, nothing for small family farms of our land and especially nothing for Black farmers of our land. We have hope with what can happen with the Biden/Harris presidency. They have a plan, though some of us working in a couple of different areas find the plan woefully lacking.

Woefully lacking is an understatement. That is why we wrote the "Open Letter to Vice President Joe Biden," and we are pleased that Politico picked it up and that one member of congress has picked up on it. We hope for more. That is why there are several projects going on, a book soon to be released that talks about land loss, a documentary that tells the stories of mistreatment of Black farmers by the USDA, and another expose of larger matters after the election. 

That still is not the point of this post.

There was an emotional collision this morning as on the one hand I was preoccupied with the politics of the day around civil rights and Black farmers on the one hand and on the other hand I was trying to worship with Christian sisters and brothers in our region. The two collided as they often collide. 

The collision is something like, Waymon, why do you do these things. I have never known you to be a political sort of guy. Well, the truth of the matter is that I have typically had the philosophy that I don't have to be in charge, but if nobody is, I'll take the reins. So, from high school to college to graduate school to work on various campuses and now to the Black farmer movement, I have maintained a "political" stance. Politics, after all, is what happens when more than one person is in the same space. But now, I am not in charge of anything. I am trying to be a good ally and to create space where stories of Black farmers can be told with all of their truthfulness. 

While the Black farmer movement is a deeply political movement with its roots in racism that go back to the very start of this country all the way up through the antebellum south, the Civil War and the attempts to maintain slavery, into reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Black Codes, and all the way up until now. 

Politics must of necessity be involved as those in political power work to maintain the power that is in their hands, and they work to keep policies going that marginalize people of color and women and children. 

For me, these issues are political and they are personal and they are deeply spiritual. The God who created us has a better way for people to be treated. The God who fashioned all of these things we see in the universe, however that all happened, has a better way for us to relate to one another. 

So, when I see the tears of a Black man whose farm was stolen from him, when I see the angst in the face and voice of a Black woman who did not know if her husband was going to return from the farm at the end of the day, and when I see the tears and hear the sadness from three sons of a Black farmer and wife who died too early because of the relentless pressure of discrimination and the fight for justice, then, I take it all very personally. It is very personal and it is a spiritual battle. 

Such mistreatment of people is wrong. From the halls of congress to the Oval Office in the White House, to the campaign trail, to the rows of cotton and wheat and peanuts and soybeans, treating people in unjust ways because of the color of their skin is just plain wrong. 

In my files are copies of documents in which the USDA acknowledged wrongdoing, which coincidentally no one has ever gotten fired for doing, so this thing is real, and not just in the minds of a few misguided social justice advocates, including me. No, it is real, and when I read those documents, I see the blood, sweat, and tears of men and women who love their country and farming. 

So, I do what I do because it is the right thing to do. I follow the lead of brothers and sisters who have been in this fight for years, even decades because it is the right thing to do. 

On the Day of Judgment, I will stand before God and if I am asked why I spent my life doing what I did, I will simply say, because it was the right thing to do. Yes, Lord, it was THE RIGHT THING TO DO. 

OPEN LETTER TO VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN

OPEN LETTER TO VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN 

September 6, 2020

Subject: Civil Rights, Programs, and Employment at the Department of Agriculture (USDA)

It has become very apparent that the working relationship between the Biden Policy Team and USDA Coalition of Minority Employees, Justice for Black Farmers, and Advocacy Groups (rural and urban) has been terminated. However, we had worked vigorously and hoped for a better outcome.

We have found very discouraging the absence of a solution driven civil rights policy similar to that of the Elizabeth Warren plan, Addressing Discrimination and Ensuring Equity for Farmers of Color, August, 2019, located here: https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/equity-farmers-of-color. We have requested on many occasions that you adopt this policy. Our anticipation was to develop a policy that would serve the good of Black farmers, minority farmers, and USDA employees.

Senator Sanders’ commitment to Black farmers and civil rights is similar to Senator Warren’s plan. His plan is found here: https://berniesanders.com/issues/revitalizing-rural-america. Some of these factors are included in his comprehensive plan for Black farmers. His entire plan is found as an attachment below. He was fully committed to systemic change within the USDA. The Biden campaign does not include these issues.

We mistakenly thought that the Biden Policy Team was searching for real solutions. When you presented us with the Biden Team policy on July 28, we expected further discussion. However, we were met with defensive posturing and then silence. Shortly after the Democratic National Convention we discovered published articles that partially contained a false narrative. Here is the policy that you proposed to the Nation: https://joebiden.com/racial-economic-equity.

Additionally, we were insulted by the policy team’s position that our request to address Black farmers issues was unconstitutional. This is a marathon from the truth. Politics, politicians, and others have operated in an “American systems built on the notion that Black lives don’t matter as much as others.” That is what your response is saying to us. To invoke the constitution to deny us opportunity provided to others goes totally against our sense of justice. That is the same constitution that did not include us from it's very beginning.

We actually had surmised that Tom Vilsack’s team was shaping your rural agriculture policy. Since the Clinton administration civil rights at the USDA has continued to deteriorate. Our position is influenced by the following and more. Jillian Hishaw’s book, “The Impact of U.S. Land Theft,” will address Black land loss at the hands of egregious practices within the USDA. The documentary, “I’m Just a Layman in Pursuit of Justice: Black Farmers Fight Against the USDA,” produced by Shoun Hill and Waymon Hinson, chronicles stories of Black farmers who prevailed against the USDA and DOJ between 1997 and 1999.

The investigative reporting of Stucki and Rosenberg’s article, “How the USDA Distorted Data to Conceal Decades of Discrimination Against Black Farmers,” in The Counter which critiques the Vilsack administration is found at: https://thecounter.org/usda-black-farmers-discrimination-tomvilsack-reparations-civil-rights.

Further, this Op-Ed piece from the Kansas City Star addresses the inadequacies of the Vilsack administration: https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readersopinion/guest-commentary/article240721906.html

Rural America is intricately connected to urban America. Many in rural America have a difficult time believing that the Biden campaign cares about them. Your campaign has a battle in overcoming this real and perceived attitude that you are taking US for granted. Such an obvious rejection of the issues we shared with you and that you ignored…. continues to perpetuate a legacy of discrimination that has long been known by many, both inside and outside USDA. Black farmers and employees deserve justice that is long overdue.

We will continue to demand justice for Black farmers and employees.

Black Lives Matter,

Lawrence Lucas, President Emeritus
USDA Coalition of Minority Employees
Justice for Black Farmers
www.agcoalition.org
Justice for Black Farmers
justice4Bf@gmail.com
856-910-2399

In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King, Jr.