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Dear Mr. President, Your Ag Secretary is Failing at His Job

December 8, 2022

President Joe Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20050

 Dear Mr. President:

Congratulations on the gains the Democrats have made during this election campaign cycle, especially the win in Georgia. However, we are troubled by the policies and actions which are harmful to America’s Black farmers under the leadership of Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has weighed in and found Vilsack’s policies seemingly inadequate. The CBC requested that $1B be allocated on tier two for Black farmers in the next round of grants and Vilsack responded with justification for only $300M. Secretary Vilsack indicated that if they have further questions, they can call the USDA’s Office of Congressional Relations rather than his office, relegating the CBC to lower-level staffers to show his disrespect. It is clear that he’s always had his feet on the hose. The Congressional Black Caucus letter is found here. Vilsack’s inadequate response is found here.

You signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA of 2022). We, in good faith, hoped for good things to happen despite the race neutral language of the bill. In the IRA of 2022, $3.1B was allocated to “distressed” farmers and ranchers. How much more distressed does one have to be than Black farmers who are holding on to their land by the skin of their teeth. Only a few Black farmers have received debt cancellation. USDA is “cherry-picking” farmers while Black farmers are losing their land, wealth, and heritage. Secretary Vilsack is in charge of these processes that deny Black farmers their justice. 

The IRA of 2022 also allocates for $2.2B for discrimination. Again, Black farmers are languishing on their lands while USDA and Tom Vilsack are pontificating about process.

Ramsess, a Los Angeles artist has captured in political satire the truths of the current situation within USDA as the “last plantation” focusing on Tom Vilsack. Here are some of his more poignant pieces. The symbolism is riveting. Please click on and expand for more detail. 

Mr. President, this has created an opportunity for you to work to rectify the misdeeds at USDA. We are relentlessly staying the course as we spelled out our expectations in our previous correspondence.

How could legislation come out of the heart and mind of a candidate for the presidency, Elizabeth Warren, who has few Black farmers in her state? How can she care more about Black farmers while others are benefitting from their pain and suffering? How can so many be feeding from the trough, their bank accounts bulging at the seams like never before? How can those organizations that claim to care about Black farmers continue to say great things about Tom Vilsack while Black farmers continue to suffer as they wait? Banks are profiting and white farmers are benefitting while debt relief remains a painful experience for Black farmers.

 The people in Georgia have spoken, and so have the American people during this election cycle. And we know that equity, accountability, transparency, and justice are things that the people demand from you and your White House. Debt cancellation and taxes that are incurred for Black farmers remain a top priority for us. In addition to these, we remain focused on eliminating systemic racism throughout USDA. Resolving cases for both employees and farmers and the county committee system are two examples of systemic discrimination.

                

Time is short. Black farmers do not have the luxury of time.

We invite you to review our letter to you written September 28, 2022 for a more thorough understanding of what is important to us.

We continue to wait for your decision to meet with Black farmers and their advocates. 

Respectfully,

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

 

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Dear Mr. President, We Gave You the White House, You Gave Us Tom Vilsack

November 2, 2022

President Joe Biden

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20050

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing this letter to you because you have not answered our letter of September 28, 2022. That letter is below.

On behalf of Black farmers and other Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers, we encourage you to have Tom Vilsack and staff move swiftly and efficiently to cancel debt for Black farmers. We encourage you to initiate processes that would cancel taxes for recipients of debt cancellation. Additionally, we request a meeting with you to discuss these and systemic changes that need to be made within USDA.

One example that told us how USDA has pointed in the wrong direction was the establishment of an Equity Commission. Their job is to research what has already been addressed. The abhorrent history of USDA is chronicled in a myriad of documents all the way back to the 1920s. To add insult, all recommendations must be cleared and accessible to Tom Vilsack…..the fox watching the hen house.

We, then, see Tom Vilsack’s actions and inactions. We see that Black agrarianism is wilting under the withering heat of racist strategies, consistent with a plantation culture. Time is of the essence. We encourage you to accept his resignation. We desire you to appoint immediately someone more attuned to issues of Black farmers across this country and bring about systemic change at USDA.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA of 2022) was a good bill; however, its intent has been bastardized by Tom Vilsack and his leadership. That responsibility rests squarely with Secretary Vilsack. He recently released a document asserting that $800 million from the $3.1 billion had already been released to bring financial security to 13,000 distressed borrowers and that $500 million more will soon be released which will help another 23,000 borrowers.  We are certain that Black farmers are receiving little if any of these funds. We know from credible sources that there are approximately 3,100 Black farmers whose indebtedness is roughly $210 million. We also have been told that heirs property issues now are front and center for him, not debt cancellation.

Our network has informed us that only ONE Black farmer has received total debt cancellation. And now, he has to worry about paying the taxes.

There is no provision within the Bill for the payment of taxes like there was under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA of 2021) because the Republicans removed it from the Bill. Since the intent of the IRA of 2022 was to relieve the indebtedness of Black farmers, cover their losses, and pay their taxes while also giving them a new lease on life, we ask for you to extend your authority via an Executive Order that cancels taxes. Otherwise, many of the farmers will be behind financially once more rather than being given a new start. We expect not doing so will have a devastating impact on Black farmers’ loss of land and generational wealth.

While debt cancellation is front and center for us at this point in our history, we also are deeply concerned regarding rooting out racism at USDA, creating systemic change within all offices and agencies, and instituting accountability and transparency. These issues have been side-stepped and ignored for decades too long.

In a recent MSNBC interview, Dr. Eddie Glaude tells us who we are as a Nation. It was a brutal yet truthful deconstruction of our country. You can do better. You can also lead USDA out of its “last plantation” mindset into a new Department that serves everyone and not just the white farmers. Discrimination wounds people and destroys families and dreams. The award-winning documentary, “I’m Just a Layman in Pursuit of Justice:” Black Farmers Fight Against USDA, produced by Shoun Hill and Dr. Waymon Hinson, explains it.

Black people of this country delivered the White House to you. Our loyalties are not blind. They are based on the legitimacy of our concerns. Democracy, and with it, equity, for all of God’s children hang in the balance. We are deeply concerned that how the Black farmer issue in Georgia is being mishandled will continue to impact our people. Your silence is interpreted as turning your back on Black farmers as you support Vilsack. There are “political consequences” for both 2022 and 2024 for ignoring or taking for granted the Black vote.

These are our expectations: first, remove Tom Vilsack from his leadership position; second, instruct the USDA team to implement debt cancellation more quickly and efficiently; third, cancel taxes for recipients of debt cancellation; fourth, resolve the backlog of unresolved program and employment complaints; and fifth, meet with a group of Black Farmer Movement representatives to discuss initiating changes within USDA that will bring about systemic change.

On the strength of the Black vote....we gave you the White House. In turn, you give us Tom Vilsack. This is not the justice we voted for.

We are eager to discuss these matters and more with you. We look forward to meeting you very soon. These issues should not be ignored and addressed immediately by your administration.

Respectfully,

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

Dear White Friends, Let's Make Sense of It All

We like to think that days of enslavement were a long time ago, and while they certainly seem to be, they really are not. Just recently the son of a man whose father lived through slave days passed. Here is that story.  I was going through my files recently and ran across a genogram in which a Black farmer traced his family back to slave days. And then there is the documentary, "Descendant," the story of Africatown and the Clotilda, the last ship to bring enslaved Africans to America. The writer/scuba diver wrote an excellent book, "The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning." A curious piece of these two, the film and the book, is how descendants of the Meahers family refused to participate in discovery or celebration. Seems like they know they are vulnerable. I hope they wind up paying the price for how they profited off the backs of their enslaved Africans. You also might check into Zora Neale Hurston's excellent book, "Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo." Her transcriptions of Cudjo Lewis and his narrative are astounding. 

If you are interested in a shorter version of the shores of Africa to farming while Black in America, I'd recommend that you check out my 2018 article, one that was actually featured as a recommended source for Black history month in 2021 by Wiley Publications. Was honored to be on that short list.

With those things as a backdrop, imagine saying and believing, "my blood is on this land," "farming is in my DNA," and "I was born to farm." And other such statements. 

Then imagine that those in power over loans and other services hold you hostage. Your application document is incomplete. You have to write it in pencil so it can be modified (which is against the rules). Imagine that you have to wait and wait and wait for your money to come in, and it eventually does via a"supervised contract," and you got only half of what you want, and what you get is two months into the planting season. Then, imagine that when you note comes due, your crop is pitiful because you did not have the supplies, equipment, nor other things for it to be planted on time and to grow into a quality crop like  the white guy's across the highway. Then imagine that the local FSA office refuses to restructure your loan. Imagine that you cannot get an appointment when the main man even though white farmers come and go. Imagine that an employee of the USDA finds out that the piece of property that you have an agreement on is there for the picking, and he buys it out from under you, despite the fact that you have a rent to purchase agreement. Imagine these things and more. 

And the interest grows and grows. Very soon the interest on your account surpasses the amount of money that you borrowed. And the USDA/FSA office will no  longer loan money to you. Loans in advance of planting season are the life blood of farming. No money, can't plant. No funds in the farm home plan, can't live. And you wait and wait and wait for them to sell your land on the courthouse steps, and they do. Do you recall the story of Eddie and Dorothy Wise. Here is what Senator Booker read on the floor of the Senate a few months back during the debate over a piece of legislation: 

"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."

Senator Elizabeth Warren and others worked long and hard on the Justice For Black Farmers Act of 2021. It never saw the light of day. 

Then, in a stealthy move, Senator Warnock of Georgia placed a piece of this legislation into the long package known as the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. This would have provided debt relief and taxes up to 120% for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers. As Secretary Vilsack dawdled in bringing implementation to the front on this piece of legislation, twelve white farmer groups filed class action law suits around the country. Three judges issued restraining orders as these white farmers claimed "reverse discrimination." What a joke. Who of them were treated in the ways that we lined out in a paragraph or two above, or who can tell a story like that of Eddie and Dorothy Wise? In fact, to prove my point, I dug into the USDA data base and found out that these farmers who filed the first three suits had benefitted from USDA economic packages to the tune of $524,000 and that the counties in which their farms and ranches are located benefitted to the tune of $1.2B. That's discrimination? Not even close. You can find those articles about slow walking and the economic benefits to white farmers and ranchers here on these pages. 

Then, Congress, led by Booker, Warnock, and others went back to work, realizing that "race-based solutions" will not work in this highly politicized environment. So, whereas the Justice for Black Farmers Act was clearly for Black farmers, and whereas the American Rescue Plan Act was for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, a specific designation by law, a new solution had to be "race neutral." 

So, then came the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. One piece of this allocated $3.1B for "at-risk agricultural operations." Secretary Vilsack got to define what "at-risk" means and to implement payments for these farmers and ranchers. Here we are in October following a signature back in August from President Biden, and few Black farmers have received debt cancellation. Vilsack announced that $800M of the $3.1B had been allocated to 13,000 distressed farmers. We know of one, yes, ONE Black farmer who has been given total cancellation. We know of a hand full of others who have received partial relief. We know that FSA Administrator Ducheneaux has written a letter to bankers asking for a two week notice if they intend to foreclose on white farmers. No mention of Black farmers? Afraid not. 

The point that angers me the most about the way this piece of legislation reads is that white farmers who have not experienced discrimination who may be behind on their payments, especially since they knew it was coming, stand to benefit on the backs of Black agrarian suffering. This is shameful. A white farmer gets debt cancellation because Black farmers have been screwed over since Reconstruction. 

I was a guest speaker on a talk radio show last night. Will link it up later, but was privileged to sit in with Lawrence Lucas, Eddie Slaughter, Lloyd Wright, and Michael Stovall. The details of the landscape and then the bitter details of the impact of racism and discrimination on individuals, couples, and families is almost beyond description. I was, however, reminded of Black farmers and family members who died under the burden of the cause for justice. Their faces and stories stretch from Texas to Oklahoma to Kansas to Mississippi to Georgia to Arkansas to Alabama to North Carolina to Virginia. I am the recipient of grace in being able to hear and honor their stories. They are the ones who suffered. Today, I continue to bear witness to that unspeakable suffering. 

We don't have time or space to get into those stats, but just read my article and find on page 915 a set of staggering statistics. Read and weep. 

There is also a provision under the IRA of 2022 for a total of $2.2B to be allocated for those farmers who can show that they have been discriminated against. USDA is now holding hearing sessions in order to develop those processes. He already has on his desk one good plan. I've seen it. It looks great. 

However, if a Black farmer receives debt cancellation, he must then pay taxes on the amount cancelled. The USDA/FSA will send a letter saying how much is forgiven, and then a 1099 saying how much is owed to the IRS. Under the American Rescue Plan Act, all taxes were covered, but under the Inflation Reduction Act, taxes are not covered because Republicans demanded its removal. We are asking President Biden to correct this injustice. 

There are other things going on. There are various filings in district courts by the Cowtown Foundation. I'm a supporter of its president. Then, there is a class action suit filed on behalf of NBFA by Benjamin Crump. We all know of Mr. Crump's reputation as a civil rights lawyer. This particular piece I find confusing. 

We could also put on the table that Black farmers have lost land and productivity of that land to the tune of $326B, per an excellent investigative piece. 

So there you have it, a birds eye view from Elizabeth Warren and the Justice for Black Farmers Act all the way down to the Inflation Reduction Act. 

This is not a give-away. To white farmers it is. To the Black farmers it is justice. 

Promises made, but promises not kept. This is America. When will the day of reckoning come for those who farm while Black in America? 

Dear Mr. President, On Behalf of Black Farmers

September 28, 2022

President Joe Biden 
The White House
1600 West Pennsylvania, NW
Washington DC 20050

Dear Mr. President:

Congratulations upon the successful passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). It will prove to be a benefit to many Americans and our economy. You and your team are to be congratulated on successfully averting the railway strike recently. Your efforts in other areas are notable and appreciated.

We are certain that you are aware of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and its sordid history of discrimination against Black farmers, other farmers of color, USDA employees, and women. We are concerned about the need for systemic change in the administration and processing of civil rights complaints and also in programs and services across USDA.

As you perhaps know, our engagement on behalf of Black farmers began with our relationship with Senator Elizabeth Warren. She mistakenly believed that Black land loss was a result of heirs property issues, but she changed her mind when we brought the evidence to her. From there, she developed a comprehensive policy of debt relief and returning Black farmers to the land. She paved the way in many, many ways that have led to where we are today.

We later supported your efforts to win the presidency, worked with your team on developing a policy for Black farmers, one that we ultimately found all too brief, narrowly focused, and omitting the crucial element of debt cancellation. Literally hidden at the end of other policy statements, this section entitled “Address Longstanding Inequities in Agriculture,” ignores Vilsack’s abysmal track record during his first two terms as Secretary and other matters important to us.

As you won the election, we continued to work with your transition team. We knew that Tom Vilsack, your Agriculture nominee, was in charge of the agriculture transition team. Especially damning was when a newly appointed attorney joined our conversation. At her last meeting with us, she declared that what we were asking for was “unconstitutional.” That, Mr. President, has come to be a self-fulling prophecy of Tom Vilsack as you look at what has happened with the America Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021 and now the IRA of 2022.

Investigative reports over the last few years confirm USDA malfeasance at several different levels, from the county level to the headquarters in DC. We have attempted to impress upon  Secretary Vilsack and you, Mr. President, that the abhorrent history of USDA is chronicled in a myriad of documents all the way back to the 1920s. It is a blight on America that we have yet to escape our racist past when it comes to fair and equitable treatment of Black farmers. In terms of farming, all advantages go to white farmers, specifically, loans, acreage, subsidies, coronavirus relief funds, trade war subsidies, and more. Black farmers have lost land at an alarming rate. In fact, economists estimate that conservatively the loss of the value of the land plus the productivity of the land amounts to $326B. There is much, much more to this reprehensible historical record.  

We are most concerned today regarding the two provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and how these provisions are currently being managed by Secretary of Agriculture, Thomas Vilsack. As you know well, Secretary Vilsack was not our choice for leadership in USDA given his less than sterling history toward Black farmers.  We along with Black farmers, their advocates, and others have voiced our discontent on numerous occasions. We understood you to say give Vilsack time. We indeed have given him time. His time in office under your administration continues to remind us of his failed leadership during the Obama administration. Recently, he used words like “complicated” and “process” to describe the current status of debt cancellation. We have heard those words before.

We are of the opinion that he “slow-walked” everything related to debt cancellation for Black farmers.  If Secretary Vilsack had acted more expeditiously, well before court filings and bank association complaints, Black farmers would now experience debt forgiveness instead of hanging on to their farms by a very thin thread. Secretary Vilsack could have paid Black farmers the way he has paid white farmers. It should not have taken more than 110 days to design a process. Black farmers across the country received notices from the Farm Service Agency. Farmers then received yet another document that specified the amount they owed, in what category it was owed, and how delinquent or current they were. Secretary Vilsack, FSA Administrator Zach Ducheneaux, and their staff have ready access to the indebtedness of Black farmers. There was no need to wait when a simple command on the keyboard could have executed payments to Black farmers.

Under the IRA of 2022, we see Secretary Vilsack moving in the same way. We fear that he will stretch out the process and give white farmers and ranchers sufficient time to scrutinize the two provisions of the Bill, find them at fault, file frivolous and racist lawsuits once more, and derail debt cancellation. One section, as you know, commits $3.1B for aiding “at risk” farmers. The second provision of $2.2B will provide monetary compensation up to $500K for farmers who evidence discrimination. Some farmers are anxiously watching to see if the foreclosure moratorium will be lifted. Please assure us that the moratorium will remain in effect.

The Alcorn State University Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Policy Research Center has developed policies for assisting “at-risk operations” and settling cases in which discrimination has occurred. As the IRA of 2022 is written, USDA must secure the services of one or more non-governmental agencies to manage these processes pertaining to the discrimination cases. Time will tell as to whether Secretary Vilsack’s favorite organizations will benefit yet again or if he will have a transparent process that does not unjustly favor some preferentially, as his history indicates. Secretary Vilsack may at his discretion define and provide aid quickly for “at-risk operations.” We will indeed know if he develops an open, transparent, and accountable process, including one that is devoid of conflict of interests…..receiving money and serving in an official capacity for USDA.  Ethically, we question those serving in an official capacity for USDA now receiving USDA funding.

We appreciate the depth and breadth of concerns as evidenced by correspondence from Senators Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Reverend Raphael Warnock, and Bernie Sanders to Secretary Vilsack on June 2, 2022. Their eight major concerns, in our opinion, were not adequately addressed in Secretary Vilsack’s response on July 13. Their eight concerns dealt specifically with recommendations of the OIG report in September, 2021; civil rights complaints and processes; authority or lack thereof of the Equity Commission; processing time of civil rights complaints; establishment of an oversight board to supervision OASCR’s handling of complaints; establishment of a civil rights ombudsperson; continuation of the foreclosure moratorium; and the removal of OGC officials from interference in complaint resolution.

Similarly, we respect the efforts made by Senators Chuck Grassley and Ben Ray Lujan to Secretary Vilsack on May 5, 2022 relative to the Office of the Inspector General’s audit of the Office of Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights (OASCR) released in September, 2021. Again, we found Secretary Vilsack’s response of July 6 to be inadequate.

We are not interested in meeting with Secretary Vilsack. We did that on May 28, 2021, and it was a most insulting and unproductive exercise. You can do better by Black farmers than has your appointed secretary at USDA. Therefore, we ask you to meet with us face to face and hear Black farmer stories………in order to fully understand the gravity of this injustice against Black farmers and USDA employees.

The NCAACP Legal Defense Fund delivered a letter to Secretary Vilsack on September 12, 2022. This letter is supported by thirty-three organizations that support concerns that mirror ours: expeditious debt relief, support for Black farmers, removal of OGC from civil rights processes, strengthening the capabilities of the Office of Civil Rights, assurance and confirmation via research data that Black farmers are treated fairly and equitably, and funding for and oversight of the county committee system, and others. Many are deeply aware and troubled at the malfeasance going on within USDA. This correspondence from NAACPLDF, then, addresses internal changes that need to be made as well as debt relief.

Our concerns are not new. Since the beginning of your administration, we have a written number over 21 letters combined to both the White House and to Secretary Vilsack at USDA. While we have addressed the urgency of debt cancellation for Black farmers, we have also spoken to the need for systemic change within USDA and for transparency and accountability. We are not in any way optimistic that USDA’s Equity Commission given its limited authority, and control by Secretary Vilsack, will bring about the change that is desired. Without addressing internal, systemic issues, sexual discrimination and abuse within USDA with its employees and discrimination in its programs and services will continue.

Secretary Vilsack’s announcement about the $2.8B funding for climate-smart agriculture advantages large white organizations and encourages little to no involvement with BIPOC organizations and systems except in the second tier with less money and more loans. There is an obvious inequity between the funding levels and the additional $1.8B went to the first funding pool. It is especially noteworthy that major corporations that in our opinion contribute to climate problems are now appointed to lead the way in addressing the need and solutions for climate change. These include: PepsiCo, Cargill, Target, and many others. We note that the timing of this announcement is curiously close to mid-term elections. We believe, therefore, that this is straight out of former president Donald Trump’s re-election “playbook.” We can see through Secretary Vilsack’s actions, as can many in Black America.

We strongly support the contention of Tracy Lloyd McCurty, Esq., Executive Director of the Black Belt Justice Center that Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack has a

“divide and conquer strategy of awarding BlPOC community-based organizations and ‘allied’ nonprofits with millions of dollars in cooperative agreements and grants in exchange for their silence on Vilsack’s abysmal civil rights record and refusal to provide reparative justice to Black legacy farmers through full debt cancellation, monetary compensation, land, and a perpetual allocation in the Commodity Credit Corporation Fund to restore the Black agricultural land base (personal correspondence).”

In our May 11, 2020 letter to you when the campaign was ongoing, we listed sixteen areas of concern for us. That list remains the same for us today: Given these matters, we encourage you to meet with us to discuss the following and more:

• The historical mistreatment of minority farmers and systemic factors that allow this to be an ongoing problem;
• The institutional organizational structure that allows for a devolution of responsibility such that an absence of accountability exists;
• The failures of the County Committee system in that people vote their prejudices such that few if any minority farmers and ranchers are found on these committees which wield such power at the local level;
• The failures of the Office of Civil Rights to fully engage in its mission to protect the civil rights of members of the USDA and those whom it serves;
• The entrenchment of the Office of General Counsel (OGC) in the affairs of the USDA Office of Civil Rights such that the OGC has the outright propensity to control decisions made on behalf of employees and constituents whose civil rights have been denied or violated;
• An environment that lacks "accountability" such that if and when an employee violates the civil rights of employees or customers, that the employee receives appropriate discipline including being removed or fired;
• An increase in funding for HBCUs that have agriculture departments;
• An inquiry into the inequities within Pigford I and Pigford II relative to denials;
• An inquiry into the inequities of Pigford I and Pigford II relative to debt relief;
• An inquiry into the absence of utilization of the USDA's land bank by minority farmers;
• An inquiry into the incompetent manner in which Census of Agricultural data is misused by the USDA;
•  A complete organizational evaluation and set of changes created and implemented by a task force under your leadership;
• Endorse a program of reparations for Black Americans who have had their land taken away;
• Review and update the Endangered Black Farmer Act of 2007 and its subpoints relative to conservation, credit, and persistent discrimination;
• Conduct a series of meetings in which Black farmers, their advocates, USDA abused employees, and other persons can speak openly as to their challenges in dealing with the racism and sexism at the USDA; and
• Create a plan to provide greater institutional and programmatic support for urban farmers and urban communities. As you may note, these are issues that a reorientation within the USDA as it roots out systemic racism will include.

We know that you can press Secretary Vilsack to act in ways that address the internal system that organizes all of USDA. We, as part of that audience want to see you demand that Secretary Vilsack move toward creating systemic change within USDA such that all persons employed and recipients of programs are treated with dignity and respect. Unless the system is revamped, we will be facing more complaints from employees and Black farmers because of the existence of institutionalized anti-Black racism.  It is our belief that USDA should be put into “receivership” as the organization does not have the will to address systemic change.

We are looking to you, Mr. President, to move quickly to press your appointee, Secretary Thomas Vilsack, to move speedily under the provisions of the IRA to wipe out the debt of Black farmers. Black voters of our country are watching and waiting anxiously for signs from the White House that our votes and our concerns matter to you. If student indebtedness can be forgiven speedily, then Black farmers’ debts can be cancelled in an expeditious manner.

In a recent MSNBC interview, Dr. Eddie Glaude tells us who we are as a Nation. It was a brutal yet truthful deconstruction of our country. We can do better. You can lead us to do better. You can also lead USDA out of its “last plantation” mindset into a new department that serves everyone and not just the white farmers. Discrimination wounds people and destroys families and dreams. The award-winning documentary, “I’m Just a Layman in Pursuit of Justice:” Black Farmers Fight Against USDA, produced by Shoun Hill and Dr. Waymon Hinson, explains it.  

At this moment in our history, USDA has no credibility with Black farmers. We have had our hopes dashed for too many years. Pigford I and II destroyed many of us. Twelve class action suits filed by white farmers derailed your race-based remediation efforts in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, and now, all race-based solutions are eliminated from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. We are not optimistic for a better day. You have the power to change this by compelling Tom Vilsack to move with all due haste.

Finally, we acknowledge your recent meeting on September 2, 2022 with various “Legacy Black Civil Rights Organizations” to discuss the accomplishments of your administration. We are, however, dismayed that such a meeting has not occurred with you and “Legacy Black Farmers.” We are asking you for the same sensitivity and commitment that President Clinton showed when he listened and responded to the Black farmers’ cause on December 17, 1997, on a Wednesday night. We want you to duplicate the Clinton/Glickman Model that showed a genuine commitment to address the historical, systemic racism and sexism at USDA. This brought about the Civil Rights Action Team Report of 1997, the Civil Rights Implementation Team Report of 1998, and the Commitment to Progress of 2000. Other reports include the Jackson-Lewis Report, the Harvard University Study, the Office of Inspector General reports, and the General Accounting Office reports, and their recommendations have mostly been ignored under Secretary Vilsack’s leadership.  

Now is the time. This is the occasion to show Black farmers and the larger Black community that you will honor their voices and concerns given the fact that they delivered the White House to you.

Again, you should meet and hear from Black farmers, not sanitized self-serving messaging. We look forward to hearing from you very soon.

Respectfully,

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

Interview with Shoun Hill and Waymon Hinson

Later this week the documentary will be viewable via the Food Justice Film Festival portal. Here is an interview of Shoun and me with Jennifer and Linda of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Once Upon a Time in a Land Called the United States of America

Once upon a time there was a newly developing country. Land as far as one could see and beyond which had earlier been inhabited by others was now seized and claimed by white men with long guns. Dreaming big dreams and counting their dollars before they came into being, they dreamed of cotton as far as they could see, rice growing in those fields, and free labor to get it all harvested in time.

So, they sent their minions to the shores of Africa and brought back people from that continent on slave ships, with human cargo stacked like sardines in a can, and some died and were tossed into the sea, and some wanted to die, but instead lived. Standing upon the auction block of port cities from the northeast down to New Orleans, and perhaps as far south as Galveston, men with money examined them as if they were a horse or a cow or a pig or a goat, and paid prices for them, all depending upon gender, age, and purpose.

The humans, enslaved Africans, were then led across country to their new places of abode. Living under harsh conditions of enslavement, they were the labor that would make America great. They provided with their own flesh the economic structure of America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. And it worked.

It worked until it no longer worked.

Then War came. Then Freedom came. Then Reconstruction came. Then violence came. Then formerly enslaved people were now enslaved once more, but just under different laws and codes.

A miracle of sorts occurred, and these formerly enslave people, those who brought agrarian skills from their homelands, were able to purchase land and came to be farmers owning and working their own land, some 950,000 working some 19,000,000 acres around 1910, give or take a few years. They made up 14% of all farmers of the country. Life was good despite Jim Crow South, the KKK, the lynching tree, and other heinous things.

Then, they began to lose their lands at the same time that the federal government strengthened farming with subsidies. Funds that were to have gone to the share croppers landed in the pockets of the white men who owned the land. It was a similar form from the plantation days.

As the years progressed, white men ran the county offices that provided loans for crops or purchases of land or seed or fertilizer. Black men needed similar funds, but the white men voted their prejudices and mostly the white men got the money and Black farmers were slowly and convincingly starved out and forced off their land.

And academic papers were written, speeches were made at professional meetings, and documentaries were filmed. 

Black farmers had enough and began to file complaints against all manner of acts of discrimination, but their complaints found their way into a file room where those carefully written documents were treated with disrespect. After all, if the president shuts down the civil rights office, then civil rights complaints must not be very important.

Then, a firebrand of an attorney caught wind of these shenanigans and one by one, the Black farmers lined up, arm in arm with him, to take on Goliath. In some instances, they prevailed. Some 15 of them prevailed before the big class action suit, Pigford, was declared a class.

Depending upon where you abide in America, Pigford was a success, a failure, or a huge scam, a give-away of America’s hard-earned money.

Thousands applied for admission to the class, a lower number in the thousands were admitted into the class, many received a financial award of $50K, but only 371 received debt cancellation, that for which they had worked hard. Lead counsel surrendered discovery, a process by which each farmer could have proved via a “find of discrimination” that they had indeed been wounded financially.

Years passed, complaint after complaint was filed in the Office of Civil Rights, but most were unresolved, as the office was a disaster, and many cases simply were allowed to play out the clock. As the statute of limitations was initiated, those inside the office simply watched the calendar, and then when two years ended, the cases were cast aside.

A courageous group of Senators, Warren, Booker, Sanders, and Warnock, amongst others, saw what was happening and developed the Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2020, but they knew that under the Republican administration, the bill had little chance, so with the election of a Democratic administration, it was resubmitted as the Act of 2021.

At the 11^th hour, the senate moved two sections from the JBFA to the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. These two sections allowed for debt cancellation for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. White farmers were noticing and strategizing. They filed 12 frivolous and racist lawsuits which stopped debt cancellation in its tracks. The banking associations even had enough time to file their own complaints. The secretary of agriculture had done what he did there as we watched. He slow-walked the process.

Finally, as a new Bill was being debated before our eyes, with the slimmest of margins, 51 to 50, another Bill was passed. This time, racially charged language was removed so as to mollify the complaints of racist America. Even the white farmers had opportunity for debt cancellation under the provisions of the $3.1B section for “distressed farmers.” Another section of the Bill committed $2.2B to address grievances for those who have bonified acts of discrimination against them.

On the sidelines in Zoom meetings and phone calls, we negotiated with staffers. We challenged leaders to do the right thing. One staffer called us his “kitchen cabinet,” and we appreciated the acknowledgement but only wanted for this Bill to finally come to pass.

That which we have worked for for decades, debt cancellation for those who have experienced first-hand the degradation of racist attitudes by the USDA and its employees at the county level are sitting and waiting and hoping.

Once upon a time in America these things happened.

Farming While Black in America: Against All Odds

By now most of us may know about the failed effort by white farmers to get a piece of the pie from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and its most vulnerable category, section 1005. Those funds were built into the bill to redress the history of discrimination by white America in the county offices of the USDA, but somehow or other, white farmers across the country believed that they were owed some of it. The Commissioner of Ag in the State of Texas, Sid Miller, was one of the litigants. 

In another blog post somewhere in here is an accounting of funds received by the first six litigants from streams of subsidies, coronavirus relief funds, and Trump's failed war with China. It is telling as to how pitiful their farmers and lives are. 

The Senate has passed a bill entitled Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and it contains funds to address those farmers who have been discriminated against, though it does not call out "Black farmers," and another section that addresses "at-risk agricultural operations." More on that later. For now, you can just scroll down to page 565 and begin your reading there. It ends at page 570.

Some of you may have seen the film or the trailer for "I'm Just a Layman in Pursuit of Justice: Black Farmers Fight USDA." If not, here is the link to that page.  Some think that compensatory damages for discrimination is a handout. That's blatantly rediculous. 

In the film, nine Black farmers' stories are told in their own words, their own stories, their own faces, and their own tears. Listed below, and de-identified, are the acts of discrimination that your government, the USDA, the FSA, the County Committee, and various and sundry employees perpetrated upon Black farmers, folks who just wanted to live and to farm. 

Any Black farmer who settles with the USDA and DOJ, if they are actually settled, requires a "findings of discrimination" document. Generally, the USDA then offers compensatory damages, debt relief, and priority of services. Sometimes the USDA honors its agreements and sometimes it doesn't. I hope you caught that last sentence fragment, "sometimes it doesn't." Yes, here in America, "sometimes it doesn't."

Imagine if you were on the receiving end of what they experienced. 

Farmer A and wife were set up by a retiring FSA County employee. Given their trust of him, they bought a farm at an overly high appraisal value. Their land’s productivity was likewise over estimated. Pest infestation was worse than they’d been told. They were denied operating loans by a hostile FSA office, favorable rulings by FSA were overturned. The “put a scar in me that will never heal,” said Farmer A’s wife.

Farmer B was denied operating loans and debt settlement options. The FSA illegally seized his disaster and crop payments. Early on, the FSA office lost his application for debt settlement, resulting in a drawn-out process in which he had to apply a second time. This person demanded that Mr. Farmer B sign blank settlement papers and perjured himself in depositions. The FSA unfairly liquidated his assets.

Farmer C and his wife were denied technical assistance and operating loans in a timely fashion. They were also provided inadequate farm operation loans. The local county office delayed information to him that was crucial to his farm operation, yet gave it to white farmers. They failed to provide him with loan applications and denied him loans despite the loans being collateralized. He was compelled to buy a larger combine than he needed, and then he lost both money and the combine. When farm operation loans came in, they were oftentimes late and less than half of what he needed to farm. The FSA officer demanded for four years that loans be filled out in pencil. His loan applications were altered. He received small loans well into planting season.  The local FSA office put his farm loans against old debts rather than toward the current farm operation. He was caught in the middle of collusion between banks and real estate agents. Loans were accelerated and foreclosure was started. The local office reneged on loans such that he could not pay for seeds or fertilizer.

For Farmer D, the needlessly prolonged process of loan applications meant that he missed out on prime opportunities for a chicken operation because the chicken company had moved on to a white farmer on a select rooster house by the time he got his money. When he did receive operating loans, he was micromanaged via a supervised account, something never done with white farmers. There was an absence of accountability for wrong doing at the county level. Land that he was leasing was sold out from under him and bought by a USDA county official who knew of its availability despite him having a lease/purchase agreement. His cows were shot and killed. He was nearly run off the road on one occasion as he was leaving the county office.

Farmer E was denied farm ownership loans during a time when white farmers were receiving them. The justification by the FSA was that he did not have farm experience despite having grown up on a farm. He was denied low interest operation loans and forced to pay higher interest rates. Similar young white farmers were not penalized. Lease agreements were sometimes terminated unjustly. The county FSA office failed to provide him with assistance. The FSA county agent was told to minimize support in order to insure failure. The FSA office reneged on lease agreements he had made in conjunction with them. His credit was ruined by FSA’s failure to support his efforts.

Farmer F was denied debt relief despite this being a legitimate option for him and his farm operation in years of natural disasters. The FSA withheld payments to him. They stopped payments on federal disaster relief following a severe drought that affected all area farmers. The FSA’s discrimination against him destroyed his credit and cost him $500,000. To this day, promised debt relief has never been provided.

Farmer G was denied loans based upon his status as a Black farmer. He was excluded from loan programs because he was Black. When he did receive loans from the FSA, he was charged exorbitant interest rates. The FSA delayed his receipt of loans which cost him financially. He was forced to work under a supervisory loan agreement unlike white farmers. On one occasion the local FSA office attempted to block his purchase of additional land. The seller worked cooperatively with him.

Farmer H was farming successfully. Despite owing the USDA a modest sum of money, it was only after he voiced support of his parents, Farmer I and his wife, that the USDA initiated foreclosure proceedings against him.

Farmer I and his wife were denied access to disaster relief funds despite disasters in the area for several years in a row. The FSA failed to offer to restructure loans in the face of natural disasters. They refused to allow his adult children to assume the loan, which was very modest at the time. The USDA compelled Farmer I to work under a supervised loan arrangement unlike area white farmers. The USDA settled and reneged on their agreements four times with them. They were told overt threats, “We’re going to sell you out.”  They were denied loans while at the same time the USDA failed to work with them to restructure their loans. The County Supervisor mishandled the USDA’s leaseback/buyback program and failed to follow their usual and customary loan servicing policies. The Department of Justice refused to settle despite the Office of Civil Rights decision that discrimination had occurred. Pigford I was on the horizon and DOJ wanted to wait. The USDA refused to offer debt write-down/write off in keeping with USDA policies. The USDA refused to provide homestead protection options. 

I hope the picture is clearer for you and me here in white America. 

A Legend has Passed: Dr. Paul Faulkner

As we age, it is more than natural that those who have been older than us have aged as well. It is still surprising if not shocking to the system when someone we have held with love and respect passes. That has happened to Charla and me. 

We learned yesterday that Dr. Paul Faulkner had died at the age of 92. We knew he was in ill health and that he suffered from several maladies. It still has caused us to pause and think and reflect upon his influence on us. 

So, I shall share a few stories and observations. 

In 1972, eons ago, when I was graduating from Lubbock Christian College, I applied for graduate school at then Abilene Christian College. We had an apartment near campus and a scholarship and all looked good to go. Then, a recruiter from Harding Graduate School of Religion, now Harding School of Theology, Memphis, Tennessee, was on campus at LCC. On a lark, we decided to apply at Harding and we got a larger scholarship and Charla got a job working in the library, so we decided to go there. 

In the fall of my first year on campus, I was part time youth minister at the Highland Church of Christ, and we met up with Dr. Faulkner at a youth rally one Saturday in Nashville. He asked, "Where have you been? You were going to be my graduate assistant." We had a pleasant conversation and that was it. 

That was it until the Spring, 1984. 

We had been at Ohio Valley College since 1982. Between 1972 and 1984 we had been in El Paso, back to Memphis, attended Ole Miss part time, and was now "Waymon R. Hinson, Ph.D." We had given birth to two boys back in 1978 and 1981, and we knew that it was time to move on from the Ohio Valley. 

I was home with a brutal case of mononucleosis which had ravaged campus that year. Mine seemed to linger longer than that of others. I was in bed, reading a copy of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, when Charla called out, "This is Tom Milholland on the phone. Do you want to talk to him?" Of course, I did. I knew that he was on faculty with Dr. Faulkner in the MFT program, then called the MFI, at ACU. 

To make a long story short, we interviewed at Lubbock Christian College and at a church in San Antonio, but ACU seemed to be calling the head and the heart. 

We went to interview at ACU with a spirit of hopefulness despite the lingering effects of mono and the fatigue of interviewing at three places in a week. Paul and Tom were engaging and inviting and we had good BBQ at Harold's. I knew I was not the number one choice, but when that guy said no, that he'd stay where he was, I was invited to become the third member of the full time faculty at ACU in the MFI. 

It struck me then as it strikes me now. In 1972 I could have been his graduate assistant, and then in 1984, he chose me to be on the MFI faculty along with him and Tom. I'd like to think that those 12 years prepared me for the next 24 and beyond. 

Paul was a dreamer, it seemed to me, and Tom and I were the boots on the ground. 

For instance, he permitted me to develop three new courses for the MFT curriculum. While they had to go through various channels of the graduate school and all, he encouraged that kind of creativity. Certainly Tom had his voice in things as something like chief academic officer, or whatever his unofficial title was. Those three: Addictive Disorders, Marital/Family Assessment, and Integration of Psychology and Theology. Later came Family Therapy Across the Life Cycle, but I think that was when Tom was program director. 

So, I was grateful for his trust in me as a new faculty member, and no doubt, he saw the value in those new courses and what they would bring to the students and their careers. 

Paul was a competitor both on the athletic field and court and in other places. His competitive spirit made me want to do better. Early on in my time on the ACU/MFT faculty, he was giving me an evaluation at the end, if I remember correctly, of a semester. He said at one point, "When we hired you, I expected you to do about a B or B+ with us, but you are giving us an A- or an A." Those encouraging words, spoken truthfully, I think, looking back, inspired me to do well in the classroom and in other phases of life in the academy. 

I remember only playing tennis with Paul and his lifelong tennis partner, Bill Wright, on one occasion. I don't remember who the fourth was, maybe it was Tom or maybe it was our mutual friend, Cecil Eager. When Paul was serving to me, I quickly realized that I was out of my league. If I crept in close, he'd hammer a flat serve by me, and if I moved back, he'd slice one out of my reach. I just kept up with the running thing. 

He was a skilled administrator. He knew when to do something. He knew when to delegate. He initiated the program becoming COAMFTE-accredited. Tom kept it after Paul retired,, and I kept it going after Tom moved into administration. 

As a group of three faculty, we wanted our students to learn the content of our courses and to learn the skills of marriage and family therapy. Each one of us, Paul, Tom, and I, had different specialties within the discipline of MFT. He was a reader and a thinker, and he pulled in great speakers for workshops that expanded our horizons as faculty and as students. 

He also encouraged political involvement. He had been actively involved with TAMFT, as was Tom, and Paul encouraged me as well. So, off I went to become chair of the ethics committee, chair of the strategic planning committee, and ultimately to become member of the TAMFT board, and then later to follow Tom as chair of the MFT licensing board. The point? Those things would have been much more difficult were it not for Paul's encouragement. 

He also encouraged all of us, himself as well as Tom and me, to present at conferences. The three of us had different interests and foci, so off we all went to state, regional, national, and international conferences. Those continued to put the MFT program at ACU on the map as a good place to study marriage and family therapy. 

Paul valued collegiality. On one occasion, when I had finished licensure requirements for the psychology license, just a few months after moving to ACU and Abilene, he and his wife, Gladys, held a reception for the MFT and the psychology faculty at ACU. During those days there was something of a rivalry between the two departments, and he wanted there to be more collegiality. He and the chair of the psychology department were friends, and he, I think, wanted that friendship to continue up and down both faculties. 

He was a commanding presence, a tall, athletic man, with a deep, countrified voice and vocabulary, and he was fierce on the tennis court. He had a laugh that was engaging. 

He recognized his foibles. One of which was his inability to remember names. Humorously, he, at times, depended upon Charla to connect for him events and names. Charla was good with names, so Paul asked her on several occasions both in person and on the phone to help him with a name. Another story that we laughed about off and on during those years was about me and his challenges with names. At our first meeting, he passed out an agenda. In the margin of the agenda, he wrote in his own hand, "Waymon do this, "Wayne do that," "Waymon," and "Wayne." I wondered if Paul had hired two new faculty. No, it was just Paul and my strange name. 

When Paul retired and turned the leadership of the program over to Tom Milholland, Tom and I both realized that we were standing on the shoulders of a giant of a man. We knew that we were drinking from wells that we did not dig. For years, Paul's portrait was hanging on the wall there in the clinic adjacent to the offices. It was a wonderful capture of the man. Looking off in the distance, pondering some noble idea or possibility. 

There are many of us who can tell Paul Faulkner stories, whether at ACU or Resources for Living or the ministry network or church in the Hill Country or the marriage and family workshops that he did around the world with his good friend, Carl Brecheen. 

It is stories, and the mentioning of a name that keep the person alive within. I plan to speak his name often because in more ways than I can count, my career was dependent upon him. Those 24 years on the ACU campus would not have happened without him, and so many other things along with those years. 

So, today, I am both glad and sad at the passing of Dr. Faulkner. Sad that he is no longer with us, but glad that he lived his life well and that so many will miss him and speak of him often, all while he is living in Glory with his beloved, Gladys.