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."