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.

Is Jesus Coming This Year? Reflections on Birth, Loss, and Expectations Unfulfilled

Is Jesus coming this year? It's that time of the year. The 25th is upon us. At church tonight we'll have a candle light service with the traditional songs and readings. My wife and I have watched a few Christmas television shows, Hallmark and all, as well as the history of the song "Silent Night" for the second, or maybe third year in a row. It never gets old. 

Something, though, is different this year. It's difficult to enter into the season's joy when the vicissitudes of life pinch, pull, and poke. Yes, when a divorce is happening in the family, that impacts us all, children, parents soon to be exes, grandparents on both sides, cousins, and aunts and uncles, and friends on both sides. The Christmas tree is up. Presents were wrapped. The three (one I've yet to see face to face, though her grandmother has) walk in with joy and wonder. They walk about the house, looking and touching, and remembering favorite things from last year or the year before. They were here for a few days and then gone again. Within those few days, there were moments of grace, reading to the two year old, hugging and talking to the four year old, and cooking breakfast and watching Mr. A. Game with the six year old. The breakfast was a long time coming and it had to be deconstructed from an egg-o. Took me a while, but we made it. 

Augustine and the Apostle Paul talk about the divided self, and that's what I have with these children and Christmas. Many of you know exactly what I mean. 

That, however, is only part of my wondering as to whether Jesus is coming this year. There is a second one, a large second one. 

Back earlier this year, and back into 2020, and even 2019, we anticipated a Christmas present, so to speak, for African American farmers. "Christmas present" is used facetiously because it really is about justice, at least a modicum of it, being served. Debt relief was in the Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2020 and then 2021, and then it was skillfully placed within the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. We had been led to believe that there were 17,000 Black farmers who would receive debt relief. Come to realize, though, there are only 3,200 or so Black farmers who MIGHT receive debt relief. 

The criteria demand that the farmer has previously received a direct loan. That is a steep hill to climb since many Black farmers had been ruled out of receiving loans of any sort, direct or guaranteed. When we look at the latest census data and realize that there are fewer than 45,000 or so Black farmers, and to realize that only 3,200 of them even qualify for debt cancellation, that is a bitter pill to swallow. 

Another bitter pill to swallow, which makes Christmas a little gloomier this year, is the fact that Secretary Vilsack had about 100 days to get the debts cancelled. Then, unbeknownst to only the most blind of us, white farmers of our country filed frivolous and racist lawsuits which stopped debt cancellation in its tracks. I've written about that elsewhere on these pages, so let it be known once more than I consider those lawsuits ridiculous and a part of the puzzle that makes for white America. We knew from the Biden/Harris transition team back in 2020 that what we wanted, debt relief, was called "unconstitutional" by a senior advisor. Lo and behold, that's exactly what the white farmers have claimed it to be. 

Now, in the current day, hidden within the Reconciliation Bill is a modicum of debt cancellation, not just for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, but  for white farmers as well. Again, on another page here in this blog, you'll find my examination of the dollars received by the first six litigants, one of whom is the Agriculture Commissioner for the State of Texas. Those guys received over $523,000 and their counties received over $1.2B. Is that really what you call reverse discrimination when white farmers get all of the advantages? Not as I see it. 

So, the Reconciliation Bill is languishing in the Senate, held up by the Senator from West Virginia. Yes, the one who lives on a yacht in the Potomac and who drives a Maserati, the one who refuses to support a bill that will benefit the people of his state. It has been said that he opposes it because poor families would spend the child support payments on drugs. Shameful. Absolutely shameful. 

So, tomorrow is indeed Christmas Day. All around us people will be celebrating the birth of the Christ child. That is a good thing. Some of us will be in a somewhat different place emotionally. Yes, we can certainly suspend our emotional selves and engage in the joy of the day. Many of us will do just that. At this house, we plan to.

On the other hand, there are people that I care about whose Christmas Day will be clouded with unfulfilled promises. For some of us, it will be about family, and for a bunch of us it will be about the unrelenting burden of indebtedness and injustices perpetrated upon people we care about by the USDA. 

These are the things I'm pondering today. 

I hope your day is good and that it brings to you all of the joy that you can imagine. Along the way, please be mindful of those whose day will be a little more tattered. Please, especially remember that large group of farmers across the land, African American farmers, who deserve better than they are getting. Pray for them and for those persons in Congress who could ease their burdens a little. 

Thank you and God bless you. And may God bless our women and men in the military serving around the world. 

Worlds Still Colliding

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

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

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

That still is not the point of this post.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jesus, Over Here If You Please

Jesus, over here if you please

You’ll find me on bended knees

Just as I am without one plea

You gave it all for them and for me.

You whose love is shown in death

The five deep wounds and your final breath

Into my torn heart and tattered mind

My soul I hope you seek and find.

What do you think of this world gone mad

Does it make you angry or bitterly sad

To see your children beaten and battered

Torn asunder like they never truly mattered.

We’re making a lot of noise

About the color of your skin

Looks like we could spend more time

On the depth of our own original sin.

It does make a difference I dare say

And maybe it’ll help us live another day

To know that you were born with deep brown skin

Can my white people let that truth sink in.

If it can and if it does and if it will

How will you respond and how will you feel

About the blight that is found upon our land

When we find all manner of hills upon which to stand.

We scream and we scream and we scream

Those monuments they need to fall

As if they tell the truth of all it does seem

Until we hear that ultimate final call.

The call for justice and righteousness to all

The words of Micah may they ring through the halls

Of houses and places of worship and congress too

Until all of your children show love long overdue.

An Update on the Black Farmer Documentary Effort

The last update from us was back in June as we wrapped up the intense week of traveling across Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama. Since then, the work has continued though on a slower pace for me, but for Shoun, things are continuing at warp speed.

Here is a brief summary of what we’ve been up to over the last two years.  In terms of funding, we received a sizable grant from the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association and its amazing leader, President, Gary Grant. While that was sizable no doubt, and got us moving down the road, we realized early on that expenses were going to be higher than we anticipated. That is where our friends stepped in.  Many of you prayed over the effort and offered words of support, 90 of you reposted my posts on the FB fund raising page, and 146 of you donated a total of $10,225. We find that both amazing and humbling.

Thus far, in both 2018 and 2019, Shoun and I (and Charla), have made six trips across eleven states.  We have been in Texas (twice), Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington, DC.

We have interviewed legal counsel, farmers and families; a former USDA Secretary of Agriculture; a former Director, Office of Civil Rights, USDA; the president emeritus of the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees; and the author of the premier book on injustices perpetrated by the USDA upon Black farmers during the age of the Civil Rights.

To the best of our abilities to ascertain, there were 15 farmers who settled administratively with the USDA in 1997, 1998, and 1999. The Department of Justice was deeply involved, but that is a story for another day. Of those 15 farmers, we were unable to locate three of them either because they were deceased and we could not contact family members, or we could not contact them period. May they Rest in Power from their trials and tribulations.

Three declined participation. Two are currently living but have legal obligations in areas that conflicted with our efforts. One son of a deceased farmer declined because “that was then and this is now.” We were disappointed in all three of these, but we understand complicated matters of various sorts.

We interviewed living farmers or family members of the remaining farmers. Of the 15 total, we interviewed 9 for a total of 11 interviews. These involved the farmers and spouses themselves, adult children of deceased farmers, adult grandchildren of deceased farmers, and a mother of a farmer.

The interviews took on a life of themselves, so to speak. Arrangements had been made, we arrived generally on time, or if we were not going to make it, we’d make a courtesy call, and then we’d arrive and begin to set up. Shoun handled all of the technical, camera, filming-related issues. I handled explanations, honoraria, signatures, and questions. Charla was marvelous for helping us get these things together. Then, we’d move toward the cameras, with note pad and questions in hand, we’d begin the interview once Shoun was squared away.  The interview would generally continue start to finish though there were times when we would need to stop for a break of some sort of other. Then we would finish.

After finishing the interview, Shoun would take portraits of the farmers and families. He would then walk the land with or without the farmers and families, taking what is called “b-roll” footage. Charla and I would oftentimes help him with his equipment. Sometimes, we would just stay out of the way. Other times we would chat with the farmers and families while Shoun was capturing what his eye said to capture.

Sometimes we would head into town for lunch, or sometimes we would chat a bit and then head on down the road. While I cannot speak for Shoun or Charla, I oftentimes found my head spinning and my heart moving into unique spaces and places.

At this point, the work actually continues. We believe that drone footage will help tell the stories. We have secured a photographer who understands racial issues and will help in telling the stories. Your financial support there is deeply appreciated. Along with that, there is a myriad of details to get done such as contacting folks whose names may or may not appear in the film, who may or may not want to speak for themselves, and all manner of other things.

While this is certainly longer than I’d intended to write today, it does give you a glimpse of the work to which you have contributed.  I’ll write more about gratitude later.

Pondering Love and to What End

Pondering love

Beginning to end

Where does it start

How does it spin.

How is it learned

What do people do

When love is the rule

And it runs through and through.

What conditions

Are placed in the equation

And what about us

Are part of the divine reclamation.

It comes from God

Or so I am told

Will I still believe this

When I am cranky and old.

Love for a wife

Love for a child

Love for a friend

Ugliness exiled.

Love for a nation

Love for a people

Love for family

Those under the steeple.

Love on display

Toward what end

Is justice just a dream

Upon which we ascend.

Love that is real

Is not about me

I am just the voice

Of all that I see.

Love for the lonely

Love for the oppressed

Love for the hungry

Those who are not very blessed.

Love is a thought

Love is a prayer

Love is a deed

That goes out somewhere.

Love that is learned

Love that is shown

Love that is real

From seeds that are sown.

Blind I Was Until I Could See

Blind I lived

Until I could see

Going to and fro

As privileged as could be.

Blind I lived

Everywhere I looked

Felt comfortable

Every turn I took.

Built into my spaces

Those assumptions that I made

I held to them like a cloak

From the chill of winter afraid.

Sameness is what I saw

Left and right so it seems

Those people over there

Blinding that heavy beam.

Whiteness is how I lived

Who would be surprised

The folks with different skin

Were somehow to be despised.

How long could that be maintained

And live and be somehow sane

To hide behind that wall

And pretend to be humane.

There were small dents here and there

By Cora and the prof we called Doc

My father’s friend named Charlie

The Black preacher even more the shock.

College opened up the door

To more people of other races

Still the assumptions just lingered

Without opening up all the spaces.

Then the call came that day

“The severity of the cause”

The words I heard

More than made me pause.

Into their world I wondered

Stories of farming while black

The powers and oppression

My white world did severely crack.

The mediation hearing in DC

Powerful people all around the room

Farmer, wife, and legal counsel

Would the feds their lives consume.

By grit and determination

The lawsuits they did win

How much of life they lost

These things America’s greatest sin.

Other people and conversations

Continued to challenge my thinking

Gary Doc Van Welchel Janice Major

My blindness rapidly shrinking.

Enslaved Africans chained

Inside the brutal ship

Bought and sold like cattle

On the auction block forced to strip.

Brought here to work the land

To support the owners greed

Never to own the land

Freedom a deeply planted seed.

From then until now

Whiteness the dominant color

Who made that determination

Of the value of the other.

We see it all around

When we live with open eyes

Oppression left and right

To many there is no surprise.

From red lining

To obstacles at the voting booth

Crime violence against people

Passed time to learn the truth.

To fulfill the dreamers dream

Cease judging by color of skin

But by content of ones character

Living beyond our original sin.

Lord, Hear My Prayer

Lord:

Where does my strength come from

To walk another day

The earth is full of such nonsense

How do we even find time to pray.

Frailties of the body are the way we are made

Could that be part of the story

That it’s not about us we might learn

It’s about you and your glory.

When do you make your appearance

In what form of yours do we await

Or do we keep on looking

While in this barren land we make our paths straight.

The right seems to know it all

It garners many of the votes

The left reacts with frustration

We have nothing of which to gloat.

Righteousness does not rule this land

We have injustices all around

The world is full of corruption

In our stench I think we’ll drown.

The book I just read this morning

Has the prophet yelling at his people

Woe to those who idolize injustice

We’re headed toward more upheaval.

We glorify our guns and our rights

We offer thoughts and prayers for the deceased

We return to our busy lives

And continue to feed this beast of a beast.

In what do we put our hope

Do we place it still in you

Or do we move on to another

Or stay with what we know is true.

I trust you move in our world

You use people and moments

And we are reminded of the fallacy

Of putting our hope in our governments.

Our hope is in you Lord,

Our faith is in those you have called

To march and protest for what is right

Lest with wrong we are way too enthralled.

Inspiration is found all around us

In Dallas, DC, and Raleigh they speak

There is hope in the words of the movement

It is righteousness and justice we seek.

Bless our efforts, Oh Lord,

Remind us toward what we all move

To make the world a better place

And the matters of which you approve.

Amen

Dear God, Hear My Prayer

Dr. James Melvin Washington’s book, Conversations with God: Two Centuries of Prayers by African Americans, published in 1994, has been a steady read for me during our days of living in Abilene, Ada, and now Denison. You may ask why a white man reads a book of prayers by people of color. There are perhaps many, but amongst others, they keep me reminded of things that are true.

In the early morning hours this morning, I read two prayers, one by Matthew L.Watley, then a student at Howard University, and now a leader of people and recognized as such, and another by his father, William Donnel Watley, then a pastor for an AME church in New Jersey, and now a senior pastor for an AME church in Atlanta.

Young Watley prays the following:

“Dear God, if you please, let me be paranoid.

I know this sounds like the strangest request.

But it’s the only thing can fill this void.

And until it is fulfilled, I’ll find no rest.”

He goes on to write about judgments made against him because of his skin color and other things such as “poor education and unequal chances” and all manner of mistreatment, but that he is told that these things do not exist.

So, he writes:

“So God, you must see the need for me to be paranoid,

Then this world really wouldn’t be so bad.

Then all that I would see is not a true picture.

Lord, let me be paranoid so I know that I’m not mad.”

Then his father, the elder Watley, acknowledges to God his son’s prayers and then makes his own request, “I pray for holy restlessness and sensitivity to the racism that still affects the lives and impacts the aspirations of your children of the African sun.” Later in his prayer, he also beseeches God with, “God, grant us sensitivity without cynicism, righteous indignation devoid of bitterness, the wisdom of the serpent without its craftiness the gentleness of the dove without its naivete. Then, Lord, help us to direct all of this passion that we feel into meaningful action, we pray.”

For those of us who are watching, there is injustice and insanity in the world.  Based on one’s skin color or one’s name, the opportunities are different. There are better jobs, opportunities, higher placement in a wide range of settings if you have a “white” name and if your skin color is “white.” There are distinctions made by police around people of color versus those of us who are white. Then, the politics of the day can be maddening and we can go mad ourselves when we see the leader of our land engage in activities that demean people of color, women, the disabled, and children, amongst all manner of others. We see the undoing of things that we hold dear such as our indigenous people’s sacred land, to mention just one.  We see the “leader of the free world” endorsing for congress one who has multiple allegations of sexual misconduct because a “liberal” would mess with the vote. It appears that guns are more important than people. 

These things are seen by some and not by others. They are dismissed by some as irrelevant to the day and as important to others. 

I’d like to see things as they are, not how I am told to see them. I want to see the truth of injustices done and to do something about them rather than being sold a spin or a justification for them. 

So, today, like the younger Watley, I am asking for paranoia so as to know that I am not mad. I am also praying like the elder Watley for a holy restlessness and sensitivity to all manner of injustices in the world. And I vow to make a difference in my small corner of the world. 

Another Day in America

Another day in America
My land, my home
Freedom rings
Why feel so alone.

Liberty won, freedoms gained

People lie beneath the sod
Their blood on the land
For which we stand.

Future in doubt

Chaos all about
“Deliver us from ourselves”
Is what I want to shout.

The hungry and the children

The aliens without a roof
Hovering in the cold
While we stand aloof.

Shouts from the mountaintops

Some hanging from the crane
Marches of millions
Words actions and change.

Why feel hope

A good question there.
People stand in solidarity
Because we care.

Hope for our children

Justice for the poor
Healthcare for women
Our future at our door.

God on His throne

Heaven a long way from here
The Kingdom is at hand
There is no need to fear.

Chapel Speech Revisted: I Wasn't Prepared for What I Saw, Heard, and Felt

What follows is a speech I gave a long time ago in chapel at Abilene Christian University. Speaking in Moody Coliseum is typically a challenging thing because the students set the bar high as to what was important and to what they would listen and to how long they would tune in. It was with conviction that I spoke the words of this text. 

The most curious thing I recall? Actually there are two:  1) I could hear a pin drop, it was so quiet, and 2) a student who challenged me afterwards.

Here are those words (with a few modifications).

It was Friday morning, early August, and I was in a southern state.  I’d used one of those internet maps to find my way to the farmer’s house.  I’d been hired to consult with various members of a black farmers' association, assessing damages due to discriminatory actions on the part of FmHA.  I simply followed the “X” on the printed out map.  In the middle of downtown, I found the railroad, “MMMM.....this must the right way,” as I crossed over into the poor section of town., noting the change in economics, names of churches.  After going in circles, I asked three men, three African American men, where I could find these folks.  They looked at each other, then at me, and then gave me directions.  I was seven miles off base.  The computer and my assumptions had led me astray. 

Following the directions as carefully as I could, I retraced my steps south of town, made the right turns, and then stopped, just to be certain, at a house where the elderly, toothless gentleman sat on the couch on the front porch.  More than willing to help, he told me I was just a mile or two away, just to turn right at the second road up ahead, and the house would be on the right.  He was right, and I was thankful.

 

The farmer and his wife were both in the nursing home, their son was in the military up in another state and so I visited that day with Auntie, the farmer’s sister and care taker.  She was delightful, introduced me to dirty rice, and we laughed about all the people watching us, young and old, mostly black, in that quaint but favorite restaurant of hers.  “They’re wondering what a young white man like you is doing with an old black woman like me.  Probably up to no good, they’re thinking.”  She chuckled and we talked more about the farmer and his situation.

On Saturday morning, the farmer’s son and grandson went to get the elderly couple.  I wasn’t prepared for their entry into the house nor into my head and heart.  He walked with a limp and carried a handkerchief for his constant drool, the results of a cerebral hemorrhage.  She walked spryly into the house, a child’s mentality in an elderly woman’s body, the result of a psychotic break several years earlier.  The doctor’s evaluations?  All the result of the intense stress of attempting to farm under adverse and racially motivated conditions that no white farmer had to face.

 

While Auntie was putting their favorite meal on the table, the farmer and I sat over in the corner, discussing matters.  Through tear-filled eyes, he looked at me and asked, “How do you think this is going to turn out?” I told him I did not know.

 

The reason I was there in the first place: consultant.  He had no reason to trust me.

 

I was touched by what I saw, heard, and experienced; their stories were earth-shaking and heart-moving for me. The farmers from three southern states.

 

Broken bodies and relationships, lost farms and equipment, torn between hope and despair.

 

I’m a child of the South, grandfathers fought for the South, one in the revolutionary war

That means holding on to some values. That means releasing others.

These struggles of broken humanity, though, don’t exist just in the South, but around the country and around the world.

 

As God’s children, we’re made to self reflect on these things: “Lord, what needs to be rooted out, thrown away, repented of?

These farmers and their families could all be described: rooted in the soil, deeply influenced by slavery, held up by their church and their faith, nurtured by their families, and buoyed by a confidence in their country and its people.

 

The color of their skin held them back: weren’t treated like white farmers, didn’t get the same economic and advisory support.  Details are in the reports, on C-Span, and in the newspapers and magazines.

Is theirs the story of our country?  In many ways, yes.  Are the same things happening around us, just in different contexts?  Rather than farming, in our churches, in our cities, on this campus?

 

Are there other stories forming?  Stories of healing, repentance, forgiveness, working side by side for important causes?  Yes, without a doubt.  Those stories are also in the books, magazines, and are even found in our churches and our communities.

If prejudice is a human condition, making decisions or forming opinions before we have all the information, and it is, let’s ask God to remove it from us.

 

If racism is a human condition, seeing others only through the color of skin and making judgments accordingly, let’s ask God to remove it from us.

 

If racial discrimination is a human condition, treating people unfairly because of the color of their skin, let’s ask God to remove it from us.

 If racism is societal, institutional, and personal, let’s be about the business of change.

If there are steps, and there are, to repair relationships between groups and people, let’s ask God to give us wisdom and then courage to proceed.

 

I can still hear the sounds of their silence as they listened. I can still feel the passion to tell those stories in places and spaces that need to hear what they deserve to be told.