A Giant in the Black Farmer Movement Has Passed: Eddie Wise

Eddie and Dorothy Wise are on the right. Both have gone on to meet their maker. Here is what Senator Booker read on the Senate floor about them during the recent debates about debt relief for socially disadvantaged farmers:

"I want to close by giving you one specific example of the discrimination I have been talking about. Eddie and Dorothy Wise were residents of Whitakers, NC. A retired Green Beret, Mr. Wise’s dream was to own a pig farm, and so in 1991, Mr. Wise purchased land and started to raise swine. But then came the discriminatory actions by USDA: failure to handle his loan applications in a timely manner, denial of loan applications, change of interest rates and escalation of monthly notes, and other misdeeds.

In 1997, a loan for improvements to the property was approved, but the receipt of the funds was delayed for 7 months, and his 400 pigs froze to death, destroying his operation. Later, he discovered that his original plan had been approved at the State level but that his loan officer never told him.

In the early morning hours of January 20, 2016, at least 14 Federal marshals descended with guns drawn on Eddie’s farm and forcibly escorted him and his wife, who was still in bed and suffering from a debilitating medical condition, out of their home and off their property. Forcibly evicted from their home and their land and forced to live in a cheap motel, Dorothy Wise died shortly thereafter. The 106-acre farm was sold to an adjacent White farmer for the miniscule price of $260,000, and Eddie Wise had lost the one thing that he had always wanted—to own a pig farm.

This story is just one example of the discrimination that literally destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Black farmers and their families over the last century. Today we have the opportunity to take a step towards justice for those families. I urge all of my colleagues to support sections 1005 and 1006 of the bill before the Senate today."

Reflections on Juneteenth from a White Guy

I'm like most white Americans who learned little to nothing about slavery, the real roots of the Civil War, life for the enslaved, tortures at the hands of the enslavers, patrollers, and freedom, or Juneteenth. 

We know a little about the Emancipation Proclamation, yet we do not know the limits of the decree. We do know of the death of President Lincoln, yet we do not know of his complexities in arriving at freeing enslaved people. 

We do not know a whole lot. As I told a friend this morning via FB, our educational system let us down. Let us down badly. 

So, here I sit on June 19, ponder a lot of things. Personally, it is the birthday of a good friend. I honor him this day. It is also the second anniversary of my cancer surgery. I honor God and good physicians for that successful treatment, especially the physician who performed robotic surgery on me at UT Southwestern. 

As a curious aside, I've also spent time this morning attempting to inform a white guy that Black farmers faced insurmountable racial discrimination and that losing their land was not a function of mismanagement. You can follow those sound bites here. Just scroll down and you'll see several of them along with my replies. 

Most of my mental meanderings this morning have been about Juneteenth, now a national holiday. For years I have personally celebrated this day more so than July 4 given my investment in the stories of African American farmers and their battle with the USDA. You can find the trailer of that film here.

For me the question is whether or not the designation of June 19 will become an opportunity to learn about the history of African Americans in America or will we simply take it as another day off, one in which to party and BBQ our favorite foods on the grill. I'm not a super outdoors cook, so I'll pass on that one. 

I will, however, continue to learn and ponder things related to Black America. As you know if you've followed this blog, I've spent the better part of 30 years or so learning about people of color in our country, that there are at least two Americas, the one I live in and the one my African American friends live in, the things I attempted to teach my sons and the things they have to teach their sons. 

There is much to be learned about those horrendous stories: from the shores of Africa, through the horrors of the middle passage, to the auction block, to the plantation and its unspeakable horrors, from ownership to owning land, through freedom to Reconstruction then Jim Crow and now. Yes, there is much to be learned by us white Americans, but, I think we are lazy. There is a summary of sorts in the first few pages of this publication 

Yes, I said it. I think white America is lazy. Either we are lazy or we are disinterested or we are too occupied. I think we are lazy, or we would learn. 

I think we are also steeped in our whiteness, the only skin color that matters. In fact, I'll go ahead and link up a poem that I wrote last year on this day. Maybe you'll find it offensive. Here is the link to that. 

So, today I am filled wonder. Wonder at how far we've come in order to honor the narrative of those who fought so hard for freedom against insurmountable odds. And the narrative of those who learned on this day in 1865 that they were free, two and a half months after the end of the Civil War.  Against those narratives, I cannot help but see the plethora of voting laws in so many states that harm people of color and their rights to vote.

So, today, I'll ponder freedom. I'll learn more about this day. I'll move beyond the myths to the realities. Yes, General Granger did come ashore, and he did announce that all enslaved were free. I'll also learn that the enslaved probably knew that it was coming. The general's decree was to the enslavers who had found their ways from other states into the state of Texas where slavery was held with impunity even after the war was over. Yes, I'll learn that through violence and intimidation, though the war was over and that these people were free, their enslavers kept them in bondage. One narrative is that the powers that be knew it and they knew that they knew it, but they let them have one last planting and harvest season. 

Yes, today, I'll honor many people, names, faces, and places, for whom this day is sacred. 

Yes, today, I'll honor those whose ancestors lived in bondage and eventually set free. I'll honor the stories of farmers who've traced for me their ancestries back to slave days. 

I'll use this day to continue to learn and grow.

I'll use this day to encourage people who look like me to continue to learn and grow. 

Black Belt Justice Center Press Statement

Black Belt Justice Center Press Statement

June 16, 2021

 Press Inquiries:

 

Contact: Tracy Lloyd McCurty, Esq., Executive Director, Black Belt Justice Center and Co-Organizer of the Black Farmers’ Appeal: Cancel Pigford Debt Campaign

Email: tmccurty@blackbeltjustice.org 

Phone: (202) 486-9857

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/acresofancestry

 

The U.S. Department of Justice should vigorously defend Section 1005 of the American Rescue Plan Act, a historic piece of legislation that provides $5B in debt cancellation and related aid to Black, Indigenous, Latino, Asian, and farmers of color. However, it is important to understand the origin and historical context of the American Rescue Plan Act. The debt cancellation language was inspired from the Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2021, which provides debt cancellation, federal and state tax relief, and the return of offsets to Black farmers who participated in the disastrous 1999 Pigford v. Glickman (Pigford I) class action racial discrimination lawsuit.

 

The Pigford I lawsuit left the vast majority of Black farmers, over 22,000, in unconscionable debt, threat of foreclosure, and no legal recourse to save their family farms. Back then, the Department of Justice spent 56,000 staff attorney hours and $12M contesting Black farmers on their discrimination claims after the Black farmers’ attorneys gave up discovery.[1] Many of us feel strongly that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) once again engaged in obstructionism and sabotage to deny expedient recovery to the remaining Black legacy farmers holding on to their family farms. While reading the judge’s order, we were shocked to read that USDA had sent offer letters to 8,580 farmers and had already started to forgive loans. We don’t know of any Black farmers that received offer letters from USDA.

 

According to USDA data, only 2,000 out of the 17,000 farmers of color with direct loans with USDA are Black/African American and less than 5% of all Black farmers will receive debt cancellation. We have been grappling with these devastating numbers and the theft of Black farmlands by USDA through the Pigford I lawsuit. Given USDA’s abysmal track record on civil rights and our collective memory of pervasive (and persistent) anti-Black racism within the local FSA offices and county committee system, we opposed USDA being in charge of the implementation process and advocated for the appointment of an independent ombudsman.  A colleague reminded us, “it is always going to be ‘all deliberate speed’ if it’s on white supremacy’s time.”

 

Over the last twenty years, the vast majority of our legacy farmers who suffered under crushing debts with USDA were either foreclosed on or forced to take out loans with private banks to pay off debts with USDA. For example, last month we spoke to the children of Pigford legacy farmer Janie Bell Bembry from Hawkinsville, GA. Ms. Bembry transitioned early this year. Back in 2011, USDA initiated foreclosure proceedings against the family farm, forcing the family to take out a loan with a private bank to pay the unconscionable debt with USDA. The family still owes over $100K and will not be eligible for debt cancellation under the American Rescue Plan Act.

 

¹Environmental Working Group and the National Black Farmers Association. 2004. “Obstruction of Justice: USDA Undermines Historic Civil Rights Settlement With Black Farmers.” Available at https://www.ewg.org/research/obstruction-justice.

 

Let Justice Ring: Dear White People Part Two

Let Justice Ring: Dear White People Part Two: Here on these pages several weeks back, I wrote a long, perhaps too long, post about the plight of Black farmers from 1910 to now. I wrote e...

Let Justice Ring: Dear White People Part Two

Let Justice Ring: Dear White People Part Two: Here on these pages several weeks back, I wrote a long, perhaps too long, post about the plight of Black farmers from 1910 to now. I wrote e...

Dear Secretary Vilsack, Respectfully, the Coalition

June 2, 2021

Secretary Thomas Vilsack 
Attention: Chief of Staff, Katherine Ferguson
U.S. Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Ave., S.W.
Washington, DC 20250

Secretary Vilsack:

We wish to acknowledge your presence last Friday morning along with key USDA personnel Katherine Ferguson, Chief of Staff; Dr. Dewayne Goldmon, Senior Advisor for Racial Equity; and Monica Rainge, Esq., Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Civil Rights (OASCR); David Grahn, acting General Counsel; Chris French, Associate Deputy Chief, Forest Service/Acting Deputy Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Conservation; and perhaps others. We hope that this is the first of an ongoing series of meetings between you, your staff, and representatives from the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees and the Justice for Black Farmers Group.

We were dismayed and disappointed by several things:  1) we were not informed as to the length of the meeting; 2) we were informed of the mode of technology at the last minute, i.e., 7:37 pm EST on the day prior; 3) the shift in technology from Zoom to Microsoft Teams proved problematic for some of our rural farmers; 4) we did not have sufficient time to ask our questions nor have our questions answered; and 5) misleading information was provided by the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights.

We are of the opinion that good leadership begins by asking questions. As we had previously stated in our letter to President Biden on May 11, 2020 and our correspondence with you and your office on May 12, 2021, we had a list of issues and concerns for us to discuss. Given the meeting’s brevity and focus, we were not able to present them. We did, however, appreciate Ms. Ferguson and Dr. Goldmon extending the meeting by an additional 15 minute per our persistence.  Because of our insistence to get questions answered, we were told by your Chief of Staff to email our concerns. The courtesy of an additional meeting time was refused.

We were obviously concerned regarding debt relief, and your team managed that well; however, we remain disturbed that this process is apparently going to be complicated and lengthy, prolonging the economic suffering of Black farmers. We were also deeply disturbed by the report from Deputy Assistant Secretary Rainge. She stated that OCR does not have a backlog of cases. This does not explain the enormous number of civil rights complaints that have been in her office for decades. As we stated, historically the USDA’s Office of Civil Rights has been called “a closing machine.” We have no evidence to suggest the contrary. In fact, several farmers on the call currently have ongoing cases within OCR. We are led to believe, then, that Deputy Assistant Secretary Rainge was providing us false information. Based on her response, we are also not convinced that there is indeed a “fire-wall” between OGC and OASCR as stated by Deputy Assistant Secretary Rainge.

Our concerns go beyond debt relief. The major purpose of the meeting was what the Secretary’s plans were to address the decades of systemic discrimination at USDA that harms especially Black farmers and USDA employees. Many of the items that were offered during the Secretary’s presentation do not get to the solution/resolution of the many systemic concerns that we had previously addressed in our communications. Recent reports and investigative news articles confirm our allegations of continued widespread racism and other abuses at USDA. For clarification, we were also concerned about cases that were not processed timely and are still sitting at USDA. And we clearly expressed our concern about the county committee system that still inflicts pain and suffering on Black farmers.

Accountability, transparency, and other matters are found within The Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2021 and could easily be enacted under your leadership. There are many other matters that we have and, therefore, we respectfully request a follow-up meeting with you or your top staff. A half hour is by far an inappropriate amount of time to resolve our issues and concerns.

In short, the meeting left us frustrated, disappointed, and insulted. We believe we can be allies in the effort to root out racism at USDA.

We are extremely proud of the work our Coalition put into the passage of Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock’s bill, “Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act of 2021,” and Senator Cory Booker’s legislation, “The Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2021” and should not be penalized by USDA for it. Please remember it was the Biden/Harris transition team that you headed up that told us that debt relief for Black farmers was "unconstitutional."

Silence is not an option for us……

Respectfully,

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

For That We Will Work and Pray

Dear Lord:

These are troubling days

In which we live and move

And find ourselves engrossed

And trying hard to prove

The righteousness of our cause

To bring justice to this land

And still we find before us

Power gotten out of hand. 

There are those who dwell in their positions

Whose offices are opulent and such

While we are wayfaring pilgrims

Forced to live without so much.

The wealthy, powerful people are white

They farm thousands and thousands of acres

Their tractors are new and shiny

Their leaders are too often deal breakers. 

We saw them on the screen

Technology brings us all together

They lied to our very faces

To the truth we ourselves are tethered. 

Who do they think we are

Some mindless uninformed folks

Who do not know what there is to know

Buying in to their contrived created hoax?

No, we are wise and informed

They will surely someday see

We will speak the truth again and again

Watch it set us all free.

From the lies the deception

The machinations to steal the land

We will push for change here and now

And thwart their heinous plan.

There is that one small town

A man and his friend where they farmed

The bank the dealership and the office

Meant to do them a lot of harm.

Pay day some day

A phrase I've heard quite often

Is perhaps soon to come true

And blows will be somehow softened. 

We will rise in glory

We will celebrate the day

When all of God's children are respected

For that we will work and pray.

Amen 

Despite the Noise, USDA Appears to be Making Progress, Maybe

I hear the words. I hear the rustle of the papers. I see the faces of Secretary Vilsack on the screen along with his Chief of Staff, Katherine Ferguson, and Dr. Dewayne Goldmon, Senior Advisor for Racial Equity,  and I want to believe. There is, however, a price to believing and not achieving. For far too long African American farmers (and other farmers of color and women farmers) have been kicked to the curb. 

I want to believe in the words of Sam Cooke that "A Change is Gonna Come." 

I've believed for a long time that change was necessary. In the face of my white friends and family, I have attempted to stay the course. For many of us, the details get lost beneath the rhetoric. For many of us, our hidden racist impulses emerge. For many of us, our blindness is deafeningly brutal. I've read stuff and heard stuff that makes my blood boil. 

Even Secretary Vilsack has continued to apparently champion equity. Check out this sound bite on twitter. Apparently he is referencing the lawsuits by the white farmers in Texas and up north. I don't know if the Black farmers would want to change places with them. That is a stretch to assume that. What I do believe is that the Black farmers want the same opportunities and services and respect that the white farmers get. No more, no less. 

They also believe that after decades of systemic racism and malfeasance at the hands of USDA and its county committee system, debt relief is a piece of rectifying the damage. Some but not all. 

As I wrote in a couple of earlier posts, the white farmers appear to be pretty privileged. I'm not doubting that farming or ranching in this era is difficult, but farming while Black is more difficult. 

So, I search around for information about Sid Miller, Texas Ag Commissioner, who is filing for himself and other similarly situated white farmers. His ranching operation is found in five counties here in Texas. Between 1995 and 2020, he received $185,490 in subsidies and CFAP. He also received some significant dollars for disaster relief for his tree business, though I did not count those dollars here. 

The other five farmers in the second lawsuit live in Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Ohio. Their names are Adam P. Faust, Christopher C. Baird, Jonathan P. Stevens, Jay T. Saba, and Joseph W. Schmitz. Their operations are found in six counties. Cumulatively they collected $338,506 in subsidies, MFP (the failed tariff war with China under trump), and CFAP (coronavirus relief funds). 

The counties in which these six farmers/ranchers live received $1,128,900,000 in subsidies, MFP, and CFAP. The counties where Mr. Miller farms/ranches received $354,200,000. 

If you doubt me, you can do your own research on these and other numbers here. 

If the stats are correct, that there are only 35,000 or so Black farmers, the odds are that they are not found in those states and in those counties. 

So, these farmers don't have a leg to stand on, that they are discriminated against because they are white. They have been the recipients of these funds and other benefits not measured in actual dollars because they are white. 

That's the way the system is operated. Run by and run for white people. Read the history books. Read especially Dr. Pete Daniel's book, Dispossession: Discrimination Against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights

So, no, Mr. Miller etal. the designation under section 2501 for "socially disadvantaged farmers" is not unconstitutional, something we heard from Biden's policy team early on, so please move on down the road and admit that people whose skin looks like yours are terribly privileged. 

And, Mr. Miller, when did you begin to proclaim that you are 2% Black? 

Asking for a friend.