Dear VIce President Harris: Can We Talk?

October 24, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20050

We represent the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees and the Justice for Black Farmers Group, and we have done so since our beginning with the United States Agriculture (USDA) in 1994 as we have advocated for Black farmers as well as for women within the institution who are being mistreated.

Our motivations for contacting you are simple. Vice President Harris, you have the President’s ear in these final days, and you have much influence with the American people and various subgroups want your support and for that, you get their votes.

We have had two in-depth conversations/interviews with Drs. Cornel West and Jill Stein. As you know, they are candidates for the presidency in 2024. We just talked a few weeks ago to Dr. Stein in Philadelphia regarding widespread abuses at the USDA. Both of them expressed a deep concern about the lack of leadership, accountability, transparency, oversight, and justice which are lacking at the USDA. We wish to hear the same from the two of you.

We recognize within a few short weeks that the people will have spoken and you, VP Harris, stand an excellent chance at being our next president. In these unprecedented times, much is demanded of our public servants, perhaps more than at most any time in the history of our country. This letter, then, will provide the justification for our list of asks.

Black farmers’ skepticism of President Biden remains entrenched and as his VP, some of that follows you. And, our opposition to the President appointing Vilsack goes back to the very beginning.

As we wrote in our most recent letter to you and President Biden on August 16, 2024, our message has been consistent since our inception in 1994 as the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees. From the earlies stages of our communications with Vilsack in 2011, the White House, staffers, and others, our message has been clear and our list of concerns lengthy and legitimate. In fact, a lengthier list is found in correspondence with President Biden in 2022 in which we advocated for systemic change.

We have previously chronicled some crucial historical points, beginning with Senator Elizabeth Warren during her campaign for the presidency, and the development of her policy to address Black land loss, racism, USDA’s failures, and a myriad of other matters in a document that became the standard bearer for the promotion of justice for Black farmers.

Several senators including Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Raphael Warnock succeeded in writing and submitting to the Senate an important piece of legislation, The Justice for Black Farmers Act.  It marked the significance of historical issues and mistreatment of Black farmers.

We have found the White House and the USDA to be closed systems, closed to us in particular in our efforts to address the concerns noted above to the officials who have the influence to take corrective measures. Secretary Vilsack ignored us except for one unsatisfactory meeting via technology as has President Biden. Only Cedric Richmond and William T. McIntee, in the Office of Public Engagement gave us a fair hearing.

We participated with the agriculture transition team, learned that it was steered by Tom Vilsack, and were informed eventually that what we were seeking was unconstitutional. Next came the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) that brought about the banking industry’s complaints and a slow walking process by Secretary Vilsack that allowed twelve frivolous and racist lawsuits to be filed by white farmers alleging reverse discrimination. See those details here.

With the passage of the ARPA, we celebrated with Senators Warnock, Warren, and Booker and numerous Black farmers and members of the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees and the Justice for Black Farmers group, but our celebration was short lived and the courts and the white farmer cases stymied our progress.

Senators Raphael Warnock and Cory Booker have in the past shown their interest and concerns regarding the continued abuse at USDA; however, in the past few years because of their busy schedules and political obligations, they have been prevented from doing what is really needed at USDA…..to put the Department into “receivership.” The reason is that USDA is not properly carrying out or implementing its own rules and regulations. The decades of failures regarding Black farmers and abuse of women employees at the US Forest Service, has been long documented at USDA, in the Congress, and nationwide.

Next, Congress passed the race neutral Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 which allocated $3.1B for “distressed borrowers” who could be of any race or gender and their debts would be brought to zero. Additionally, a sum of $2.2B was allocated for farmers who could prove that they had experienced discrimination, regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, and gender. We critiqued this bill and its outcomes quite intensely in a letter to the President. The process proved to be laborious but ultimately approximately $1.76B was allocated to Black farmers and the remainder to others.

The process was laborious and complicated, some farmers died before they could see any benefits from the lengthy chain of events and entities. Relatively few of our friends received any benefits as it appears that the few who did were hand-picked by the USDA.

So, that is where we are with regard to finances. However, the saga continues with other matters, and we would like to outline them for you.

We know of zero Black farmers meeting with the President though we do know of a few who have met with FSA Director, Zach Ducheneaux. Their voices are important and unheard.

A significant piece of research found that between 1910 and 1997, Black farmers losses amounted to approximately $326B. Those losses will never be made up. In terms of the pandemic relief funding of billions of dollars, only 0.1% went to Black farmers. This is one example of the many burdens placed upon our Black farmers in rural America.

Various studies from within the federal government have validated what we believe, that inadequacies impact all of us. In November, 2023, the General Accounting Office (GAO) provided a scathing rebuke of the internal tracking system for complaints. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reported in September, 2021 that the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights was failing to process complaints in a timely manner and potential circumvention of the law. A recent doctoral dissertation provided a negative evaluation of the county committee system, one which continues to be protected by Secretary Vilsack.

Secretary Vilsack refuses to provide information about loans and services by race, asserting that to do so would be illegal, despite two Farm Bills that demand the collection and dispersal of this information. We know globally but not specifically these numbers.

Various investigative reports “The Machine that Eats up Black Farmland,” by Joyce, Rosenberg, and Stucki; ”Forced Off Their Land,” by Holloway; and “How USDA Distorted Data to Conceal Decades of Discrimination Against Black Farmers,” by Rosenberg and Stucki; and numerous internal and external reports, accumulated by the Environmental Working Group, all tell the tragedies of white farmers being advantaged in all areas by comparison to Black farmers. These matters of racism and injustice have been occurring under the current administration as well as that of Obama, Bush, Clinton, and previous administrations for decades. The USDA acts as if it is a law to themselves and fails at too many levels to display transparency, accountability, and a commitment to removing racism from its halls and offices. The Equity Commission of Vilsack and the failures of the County Committee system are two that are most obvious to us.

While this is merely the tip of the iceberg for us as advocates, we have not been silent nor invisible. We have written numerous letters to the White House, the USDA, and to others. We have published many letters in various open forums. Perhaps you know that on March 1, 2023, a large number of us demonstrated in front of the White House with placards, signs, and megaphones.  

We, therefore, have several asks of you, Vice President Harris. We hear you say that you are not afraid of good ideas and that you will not shy away from them. Here, therefore, are our issues to discuss with you and/or your top advisors.

Work together with us and meet with us as have Drs. West and Stein;

Place USDA at the top of your list of priorities and create practical options for rural America and Black farmers;

Hear and validate the pain and suffering of Black farmers and families; 

Address the problems within the Office of Civil Rights and compel the office to settle complaints of Black farmers that are languishing there;

Appoint a new Secretary within your administration, one with the trust of Black farmers and other advocates;

Compel USDA to develop a course of action that eliminates sexism and sexual assaults and other abuses experienced by women in the forestry division, Western Region; 

Compel USDA to develop a course of action that eliminates racism and unfair practices that disadvantage Black farmers and favor white farmers; 

Compel USDA to develop processes that create justice, accountability, and transparency throughout the Department; and 

Require the leadership within USDA address the area in which most discrimination occurs, the Farm Service Administration at the county committee level. 

Many African Americans in urban America are only one or two generations away from the farm in rural America and it is important to know the deep connections between the two. Some of us feel forgotten because of the extensive focus on urban America. To begin to address these matters even prior to the election would make a dramatic statement to our people. Black farmers and families are rural America.

 

We follow you and your campaign closely and appreciate the town halls that you have been in including the one on CNN last night. We understand your time constraints as you travel and speak over the next two weeks. Therefore, we request an immediate conversation with one of your closest advisors, Cedric Richmond, to discuss our issues and concerns relative to Black and minority farmers and abused women within USDA and larger systemic issues.  

We stand available to answer any and all of your questions and assist you in this regard. Many Black farmers and their advocates feel abandoned by our Black leadership in Washington and in rural America. We are “the voice of the voiceless.”

Respectfully,

---S---

Lawrence Lucas
President Emeritus, USDA Coalition for Minority Employees
Representative, Justice for Black Farmers Group
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064681597169
www.blackmeninAmerica.com
LawrLCL@aol.com
856-910-2399 

 ---S---

Waymon R. Hinson, Ph.D.
Representative, USDA Coalition of Minority Employees
Representative, Justice for Black Farmers Group
www.letjusticering.blogspot.com
Psychologist
Waymon.hinson@gmail.com
903-271-4654

 

 

Status of Black Farmers Across the US and Texas

Recently a Black farmer was interviewed about the challenges of farming while Black in America. He replied with a touch of humor and sadness in his voice that we are losing so many Black farmers that we ought to put them on the endangered species list.

In the early decades following freedom, Black Americans became prolific land owners, the peak of which was reached in the early 1900s. Approximately 950,000 Black farm operators owned 22,000 farms, worked 47,000,000 acres, and owned 19,000,000 acres. While these numbers paled by comparison to white farmers, they were  staggering evidence that Black farmers violated a tenant stated by the wife of a Black farmer, “We were intended to work the land, but not to own the land.

Dispossession soon began to occur. The number of Black agrarians dropped precipitously over decades. While white ownership remained relatively stable, Black ownership dropped ultimately by 90%.

Currently, there are 35,470 Black-operated farms with 4.7 million acres, or 0.5% of the nation-wide farm land total. The precipitous drop from 47 million acres to 4.7 million is staggering as is the drop from 950,000 to 35,470 Black producers. It is estimated that the value of the losses of land and the value of production from the land between 1920 and 1997 were approximately $326 billion. What a loss in generational wealth.

But what about Texas? We have more Black producers than any other state. There are currently 11,268 Black producers who farm 972,552 acres. This amounts to 3% of the state’s total farm producers. Smith and Freestone Counties each have over 300 Black-operated farms. While statistics are lacking, essentially Black farmers do not trust USDA, so they avoid funding opportunities and services by USDA as they farm smaller parcels or focus on smaller cow/calf operations. In recent years, however, at least one Black farmer successfully prevailed against the USDA and its discriminatory practices, and another family had its debts canceled by USDA’s agency, the Family Service Agency, under current USDA/FSA policies. What has impacted Black farming across the country has certainly impacted Black farmers in Texas.

USDA has readily admitted that their programs and personnel discriminate against Black farmers, especially at the county committee level, but the Department refuses to address it. The list is long and painful. The USDA refuses to supervise the county committee and thus, Black farmers do not get the support they need for loan applications, technical support, disaster relief, and loan restructuring and much, much more. The result is foreclosure and loss of land and livelihood. On one occasion the check written by the USDA was held in a file folder until the land was foreclosed upon and the farming operation was gone. The land was bought by an adjacent white farmer. This only scratches the surface of the acts of discrimination that occur. In 2022 the USDA approved white farmers loans at a rate of 72%, but Black farmers at a 36% rate. Black farmers received only .01% of covid relief funds despite making up 5% of all farmers.  

Certainly, farming is a hard business, but it should not be more difficult because of the color of one’s skin. The pain and suffering experienced by Black farmers are indescribable. Fighting against the system which refuses to change, and facing one microaggression after another has resulted in emotional, relational, and physical damages to persons and family members. Farmers often weep when recounting the damages in their bodies causes by persistent racism within USDA.

The USDA and Congress have made attempts to change but all to no avail. Fifteen Black farmers prevailed against the USDA between 1997 and 1999. Pigford I and Pigford II which stretched from the late ‘90s well into the early 2000s were failed efforts. Reports such as the Jackson Lewis Report, the D. J. Miller Report, the Civil Rights Action Team Report, and the Civil Rights Implementation Team Report, and of late the Equity Commission Report, and others, but racism continues unabated. There must be a will to make changes that harm people and destroy livelihoods.

Congressional actions including the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, both promised much, but delivered little to Black farmers.

Yes, distrust has been well earned and well documented. There must be hope, and the bill recently proposed, “Just USDA Standards and Transparency Act of 2023” along with the Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2023, offer much to Black farmers in efforts to root out racism and to promote transparency and accountability.

What are advocates doing? They are appealing to the White House for changes within the leadership of the USDA, appealing directly to the Secretary of the USDA for more transparency and accountability, challenging the county committee system, and challenging the manner in which funds for discrimination are allocated under the IRA of 2022. They lobby various congressionals including Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, and Raphael Warnock. They held a one-day march in front of the White House back on March 1. This is a righteous cause for this group of people.

Trust must be restored nation-wide and here in Texas. Farmers are vital to our economy and our way of living. Black farmers are equally important to our way of life and must be treated fairly and equitably.

Dear President Biden: Your Administration Continues to Betray Black Farmers

This letter to President Biden further explains the letter to the congressionals in Texas in the letter found below. 

January 19, 2023

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

Dear Mr. President:

Your administration continues to betray Black farmers.

We have written to you about this betrayal and our concerns on several occasions including: September 28, 2022 and December 8, 2022. And, we have written to Secretary Vilsack on several occasions including: November 22, 2021 and July 23, 2021, and even to the House and  Senate Ag Committees on May 29, 2022. Our concerns, then, have been articulated on multiple occasions. We have not been working in the dark, but rather in the light of day.

Secretary Tom Vilsack, your appointee at USDA has deep ties to the dairy industry in which he worked between terms with President Obama and then with you. That relationship has resulted in millions of dollars being doled out to “Big Dairy.” The same could be said for “Big Farming.”

At the same time, he has not delivered on congressional allocations found in the act that you signed, The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), just as he did under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA). The $3.1B for “distressed” farmers has not found its way into the hands of Black farmers. Our network which is nationwide has found only seven Black farmers who have experienced any sort of “payments” under this Bill. We know that 2,400+ Black farmers owe approximately $210M, and Secretary Vilsack has not paid off their debts as contained in the Bill. Why is that, Mr. President?

The IRA of 2022 also promised $2.2B for those farmers and ranchers who had experienced discrimination. One or more non-governmental entities were to be tasked with distributing those funds. Again, without a doubt most Black farmers would qualify, especially the Pigford Legacy Farmers. Again, Secretary Vilsack has not acted within an expeditious manner toward Black farmers. Will he indeed run out the clock, endangering that funding with the next administration?

We understand that $800M has been received by 13,000 distressed farmers, that they have been brought current on their financial obligations and that an additional payment was made and that they are to take up their own payments the following year. We ask the USDA, “where are the other Black farmers,” and “when will the other Black farmers receive their due?” And we are not given any answers.

We also understand that Secretary Vilsack will reduce funding for discrimination from $2.2B to $770M. If this is true, this is indeed an act of arrogance on his part.

We are troubled that he continues to fund white farmer programs, create MOUs with entities such as the National Urban League, which has little to nothing to do with farming, and yet he is not forthcoming about efforts with Black farmers.

When we ask the FSA Administrator the status of Black farmers in particular, we are given global assertions relative to all farmers, with no details forthcoming about Black farmers. We are left to wonder does he not know the status of Black farmers or is he refusing to tell us.

We were hopeful that The Consolidated Appropriates Act of 2023 (CAA) would include tax relief for Black farmers that was curiously omitted in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Since no amendments were allowed in the CAA, Black farmers (and other farmers) will now be saddled with taxes on the principal that has been forgiven, both for those “distressed” farmers as well as for those who will receive compensation for discrimination. This will result in putting the farmers back between a rock and a hard place. In some instances, they will be worse off than before.

Secretary Vilsack is playing games with funds allocated to farmers. He is not a friend to Black farmers. He is hurting the cause of Black farmers, and at the same time, he is costing you credibility. As he is your appointee, we ask, how does he get to play with the public’s money? How does he get to play with funds allocated by Congress? Where is the oversight over his doings in USDA? And we further ask, why are you not more forthcoming with regard to his deficiencies? One of our members has written in recent days about Vilsack’s failures following the signing of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. He indeed slow-walked that process just as he is slow-walking processes here.  

We now live in precarious times with the radical right controlling the House of Representatives, with ongoing revelations about confidential documents found in your office and residence, and as you are working to get the first caucus out of Iowa and into South Carolina.

We are not impressed with your appearance at Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta last Sunday. In fact, Black farmers in the southern region are growing increasingly disenchanted with Senator Warnock. We believe that he has abandoned us now that he has won his election.

We want you to take a stand for Black farmers. We realize that it may cost you some white votes. In the long run, however, it will gain favor and votes from Black farmers and families.

We want Black farmers, as a pool of “distressed” farmers, to be relieved of their onerous indebtedness. We want Black farmers who have experienced the devastation of discrimination to be compensated. We want to see systemic change at USDA and that includes resolution of the numerous complaints within the Office of Civil Rights. We want transparency and accountability, and we want to see changes made with the county committee system. We want more than verbal assurances that discrimination will no longer be tolerated at USDA.

Dr. Eddie Glaude, professor at Princeton University, has a unique grasp on America as he articulates in an interview with MSNBC that we fail to confess our racism and white supremacy. The USDA has failed to own up to its responsibilities as to how racism brutalizes and destroys people as the USDA takes away land, identity, health, and families. This documentary addresses the impact of systemic racism upon Black farmers and their families.

We gave you the White House, Mr. President, and you gave us, over our protests, Thomas Vilsack. There is still time to undo these injustices.

We are eager to hear from you.

Respectfully,

Lawrence Lucas, President Emeritus
USDA Coalition of Minority Employees
Representative, Justice for Black Farmers Group
Email: lawrlcl@aol.com
Phone: (202) 744-4384
 
CC: Congressional Black Caucus
NAACP, Legal Defense Fund
Senator Elizabeth Warren
Senator Cory Booker
Senator Bernie Sanders                         
Senator Ben Ray Lujan
Senator Chuck Grassley
House Ag Committee
Senate Ag Committee