They Did What? Unbelievable, Believable: An Advocate Shares the Story

They Did What? Unbelievable, Believable

Sometimes remarkable events just simply unfold in front of me. One of those happened last week when one of my former students, Dr. Lisa Merchant, now chair of the Marriage and Family Department at Abilene Christian Univerity, asked me to share the documentary and some thoughts about advocacy from a spiritual perspective. We did what Shoun and I separately or together often do, introduce the film, its background, its making, watch the film, and then discuss what the viewers saw and exprienced. Dr. Merchant and her co-teacher Dr. Tera Harmon did so beautifully. 

As most of you know, the film, "I'm Just a Layman in Pursuit of Justice: Black Farmers Fight Against USDA," chronicles the stories of 9 of 15 Black farmers who between 1997 and 1999 brought their cases of injustice to the US Department of Agriculture and the Department of Justice. While there are non-farmers in the film such as former Secretary of Ag, Mike Espy and the first lawyer for the farmers, James Myart, the film focuses on the stories of the farmers, their years of discrimination, and what they won and what they lost farming while Black in America. 

The students in their final class in the MFT program apparently listened intently as their questions were spot on and allowed me to rift off of them. One of the best was the notation that several times the farmers used phrases like "my DNA is in farming." A second comment was made by a student and the the emotions he felt when I read the names of the Black farmers who have died in the struggle for justice. There were others and it was a beautiful conversation. One huge blessing was that of having Dr. David Todd Harmon, COO of MANA and member of Social Justice Team II at ACU back in the day, reflect upon the film. He shared his skeptism of whether I was right or wrong, and how over the last twenty years he's learned the truth of it all. 

Additionally, I did have the opportunity to discuss the break in Shalom in the garden and how any harm to any person, any sin against another is a break in Shalom, and all of our efforts in the counseling room and in the arena of advocacy are attempts to recreate Shalom as best we can. What is Shalom you ask? It is more than peace, it is an active flourishing of the human experience, and much more than that. Racism is not the way it is supposed to be.Racism is not the way it is supposed to be. Discriminatory actions against those who simply want to farm is not the way it should have been. I also shared from Isaiah 61 and Luke 4 the narrative of Jesus entering the synagogue of his hometown of Nazareth, reading sections from Isaiah with the flourish of "you have heard this passage fulfilled in your hearing." Those words of Jesus capture His mission, to restore, to heal, to mend, to repair, to spread the good news of the Kingdom to "the least of these." 

It occurred to me in recent days that the documentary, sixty minutes in length, cannot possibly tell the entirety of the discriminatory actions done to them by employees of the USDA, so I created a list of both the farmers (anonymously) and deeds done against them. 

If you have not seen the film, I encourage you to at least watch the trailer and you'll get a good sampling of what the entire documentary is about. You'll feel with them in their pain and suffering, and you'll appreciate their willingness to share their stories and the gifts Shoun has in capturing them. 

Here is a fuller description of the acts of discrimination perpetrated upon them. This list is a reprint of a previous blogpost.This list is a reprint of a previous blogpost.

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. 

The history of USDA and DOJ is not a pretty read. And I'm glad now that MFT/ACU students and faculty can wrestle in some way with what I've wrestled with for years now. A driving question for me is "why, if democracy is important to all of us, and all people are created been equal, have we devolved in such a way that some people are worth far less than others? 

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.

Reverend Senator Raphael Warnock: Step, Stand, and Stay with Us, An Open Letter

February 25, 2024

The Honorable Raphael Warnock, Ph.D.
407 Auburn Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30312
 
416 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
 
Dear Senator Warnock:
 
It is a pleasure to worship with Ebenezer each Sunday morning and especially today with the preaching of Olu Brown. Besides growing up in the same region of East Texas, he and I share in common a concern for the gospel and for people.
 
My “transition” to Ebenezer took place several months back when two things happened: 1) my physicians told me to stay out of crowds lest I contract a disease and die and 2) my growing discontent with a white church with a smattering of Black sisters and brothers and a growing shift to the right and a lack of interest in engaging important matters in our larger community.
 
Besides our mutual degrees in theology, you and I share a deep concern for all to be included at the table and all to be included in farming across this great land of ours. I understand that you have been instructed by the writings of James Cone and Howard Thurman. I have only come to embrace their writings and ways of thinking and living in my senior years. As you share inside information as a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, I share a deep concern for the mistreatment of Black farmers at the hands of USDA. Since 1995 I have listened to injustices perpetrated upon Black farmers, I have heard and heard again of the pain and suffering that farmers and their families experience at the malfeasance of USDA/FSA that lands squarely in their laps. As a board member of BFAA, Tillery, NC, and as a representative of the Justice for Black Farmers Group and as a co-laborer with Lawrence Lucas, President Emeritus, USDA Coalition of Minority Employees, I have had the pleasure and the pain of advocating on behalf of Black farmers and families at a whole different level, one upon which you live, move, and breathe. My speeches, publications, blogposts, and even a documentary are easy enough to find.
 
In Reverend Brown’s sermon this morning, as he touched on the three actions of faith as exemplified by the Israelites there at the Jordan: Step, Stand, and Stay, I was convicted that such actions can easily apply to the Black Farmer Movement by the farmers themselves, by advocates like me, and by congressionals with power like you.
 
Those three actions exemplify the Black farmers and advocates. We stepped out in faith that their cause was a worthy cause, convinced that Black farmers had been kicked to the curb since the earliest days of USDA, and likewise convinced that the investigative reporting verified the horror stories that we had heard for decades. We have moved into standing. We would not be moved by a different administration. We were unmoved by the rhetoric of promises following by a display of inaction. We are unmoved by the cherry-picking of USDA and its debt relief while Black farmers lose their land. And we have stayed. We stay as our people die. One of my studies has been the impact of the micro and macro-aggressions of the county office on the health and well being of farmers and families. You have heard of the death of some: Eddie and Dorothy Wise and Eddie Slaughter, just to name three. While we have life and breath, we will stay in the struggle. While we have life and breath, we will stay until racism has been removed from USDA and until all of God’s children are treated with the same dignity, respect, and funding for farming.
 
We wrote you a letter on March 4, 2021. That letter is attached to this letter for your convenience. The tragedy is that much has stayed the same. Things have not changed for the better the last three years for Black farmers. In fact, we think things are actually worse and land loss and its tragedies happen right before our very eyes.
 
We are asking that you step, stand, and stay with us. We respectfully ask that you meet with us and discuss the current status of Black farmers and that you work with us to find avenues of remediation. Avenues and actions are there: the Justice for Black Farmers Act should be enacted, greater transparency and accountability should be mandated for the USDA, Black farmers should receive the same benefits as any farmer in terms of funding for farming and farm operating loans and other matters, loss of land and livelihood must cease, and the White House and USDA must declare and show with actions that Black farmers from New York, down through the South, across to Texas and then the Midwest, and across the Southwest, and even to California and the western states all matter, Black the same as white in all matters related to farming.
 
Thank you for reading this letter. We eagerly await your response and an opportunity to meet with you.
 
Respectfully,
 
----S----
 
Waymon R. Hinson, Ph.D.
www.letjusticering.blogspot.com
www.blackfarmersinsearchofjusticefilm.com
Psychologist/Marriage and Family Therapist
Advocate/Researcher
Representative for BFAA, Justice for Black Farmers Group, and
  USDA Coalition of Minority Employees
903-271-4654
Waymon.hinson@gmail.com
 
CC: Lawrence Lucas
       Corey Lea
       Michael Stovall

Let Justice Ring: Courage, Its Face, Its Sounds

Let Justice Ring: Courage, Its Face, Its Sounds: What does it look like         How does it sound; Its smell is like what,         It comes when and how? To speak a word of truth    ...

Mental Meanderings on the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

For some reason, and for that reason or reasons I am not quite sure, my mind has drifted off and on back to Frederick Douglass' July 4th speech which was actually delivered on July 5, 1852. In that lengthy presentation he lined out the history of freedom and all it surely means to Americans as they had escaped tyranny of the British. Against the celebrations that occur on July 4th, he posed the question, "What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?"  He proceeded to answer in no uncertain terms: "To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." For the entire speech, you'll find it here. 

What, you may ask is the point of that paragraph? Good question. 

I have been pondering of late this particular Monday in January as the day of celebration for the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And I ponder how it is celebrated by whom. Likewise, I ponder who thinks favorably of Dr. King in this day and age, some 56 years after his assassination and 61 years after his famous "I Have a Dream Speech" there on the mall in DC. 

Back in those days, as I recall, from my  childhood, which can certainly be flawed, people saw him as a liberal, a communist, a social gospeler, and a trouble maker. Nowadays, his ratings continue to climb such that most of America seems him favorably, even to those on the right in this division of the country, and more so over on the left. 

What do I do if I revere the man and his message? Do I close my office if I am a church leader or a business owner? Do I take the day as a day of service, unlike any other national holiday? Do I speak of him on the Sunday prior to the national holiday on Monday? Who is most likely to speak of him from the pulpit and who is least likely to speak of him on that preceding Sunday? As an aside, I wonder if attitudes toward these questions could in some way be consistent with how individuals and churches approach Juneteenth. Just wondering. 

So, thinking a tad more personally now, I want to do something meaningful today. I want this day to be a different day than all other Mondays. 

And so, you might ask, "What did you do today that is in keeping with Dr. King's birthday?" 

Thank you for asking. 

I did five things:  1) I listened to quite a few speeches and sermons of his. 2) I listened most intently and even found the manuscript to his sermon entitled "Guidelines for a Constructive Church" and read through the text. 3) I pondered the application of those words and ideas from that sermon to today's church, the church broadly speaking and the local church that I'm still a member of. 4) I did some editorial work for a promo that will soon be used to spotlight a transition that we are making for a Thursday night broadcast on blog talk radio, a program called "Seeking Truth and Justice," led by Lawrence Lucas, President Emeritus, USDA Coalition of Minority Employees, and Representative, Justice for Black Farmers Group. And 5) I am now putting things onto the cyberpage of "blogspot" in order to share with you my reflections.

Dr. King preached the sermon "Guidelines for a Constructive Church" on May 29, 1966, and according to the historians, at that time he was a marked man. He had about 700 days left to live. As many of commented, he had a sense of knowing about his early departure from this earth, and he was not afraid 

So, on that particular Sunday, as he preached to Cornerstone Baptist Church, and now to us, still, in 2024, he was eerily prophetic. His words are captivating, how he can turn a phrase, and how he is able to draw illiterations from the words as they proceed from his vocal cords. A side bar curiosity is this: if you follow the text of his sermon while listening to him speak, you'll get lost. He ad libs a lot. 

For the most part, his sermon is drawn from Luke 4, Jesus' appearance in the synagogue at the beginning of His ministry as He quotes from the prophet Isaiah 61. Dr. King has three distinctive movements from this text, all woven with current political events paralleling with words for the church. First, Jesus' words are spoken such that the Church must know that its mission is to care for the brokenhearted, the exhaustion that comes from living, an exhaustion he knew all too well. Second, he encourages the Church to preach the gospel to the poor, to the marginalized of the world. The audience is challenged to see the gap between the haves and the haves not. Third, the Church is to "preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Every year, and in every moment in time, that moment falls within the "acceptable year of the Lord." He perpetually faced "history stoppers," but he was a "history maker," and we are to do and be the same.  

For a look at the transcript of his sermon, look here, but be prepared for his ad libs. They are oftentimes the best. At those times, in my opinion, he is most prophetic and eloquent. If you want to listen to his sermon, you can find it here. 

Dr. King's words seem to be rather prophetic. Spoken in 1966 and here we are in 2024, and how far have we come? If you are a Black American, you'll say not far enough. If you are a white American, you'll say that we've come pretty far. 

My concern is for the church and for us who make it up, how well are we doing with applying Luke 4:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,To preach the acceptable year of the Lord."

How are we doing with preaching the gospel to the poor, healing the brokenhearted, preaching deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, setting at liberty those that are bruised, and at preaching the acceptable year of the Lord?

And I hope some sister is over there on the first or second or third row calling out, "Make it plain! Make it plain! Make it plain!"

Let Justice Ring: Then He Went to Church

Let Justice Ring: Then He Went to Church: On Monday he ignored a loan application from a Black farmer Then on Sunday he went to church. On Tuesday he changed the farmer's farm...

Stories of Baseball, Black Farmers, and the Young

I am a fan of stories. I love stories. It's been said that we live in and through our stories and that they give us meaning. We will not remember the three key points of a recent speech or sermon, but we will remember the stories told to flesh out the points. 

A long time ago when my oldest grandson was eight years of age, three generations of family sat in a favorite restaurant talking about things of interest, and then the little boy who was sitting across the table reading his book asked me a question, "Why do you work with Black farmers?" Didn't know he was listening. How do you answer a complicated question like that in words a child can answer. Was he really asking about his Poppie, or was he asking about them? I took the them route and simply told him, "because they have been mistreated." He seemed satisfied with the answer. In the years since then we have deconstructed in painful ways how Black farmers in fact have been mistreated. Here is more of that story written in 2007, if you'd care to read it.  

Several months later, the setting and topics changed but the questions remained. We were at this little guy's house and he was curious about Negro League baseball. How he landed on the topic is beyond me at this point. It might have been a wonderful book we were looking through by Kadir Nelson, "We Are the Ship," the history of Negro League baseball. The grandson wanted to know about Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and others. For a young child, he wanted to know why Black baseball players could not play in the major leagues against white ball players back then. So, we had a simple conversation about race and justice and inequality. To memorialize the conversation, or so my memory reminds me, he actually drew for me a picture of Paige standing on the mound. That book by Nelson and that work of art by my grandson are prized treasures in my collection. Here is the rest of that story. You can even see the cover of Nelson's book and the drawing of Satchel Paige. 

And then just last week another question came from an eight year old grandson. It shocked me. For some reason, I was showing him some photos of the March 1 protest event in front of the White House. He was impressed that his Mema was carrying a sign. I showed him a picture of Reverend Binion and told him a little of his story. I pointed out Lawrence Lucas and shared a few details about him and my relationship with him. I pointed to Willie Head and told about meeting him a lot of years ago and talking with him. I pointed in several pictures to the White House in the background. 

You may remember a story about this little guy from a few years back. You can read the letter that I wrote to him back in 2019. You can even see his little hand holding up the sign, "Black Lives Matter." If you saw the complete picture, you would see him chanting that phrase with intensity on his face. 

I wrote to him these words: "You have been a part of something huge. You are only five years of age, and you likely do not get it now. You do what five year-old kids do, you read, run, pretend, build forts, play with your sisters, eat Poppie Snacks with me, sit next to your Mema and watch Paw Patrol, and make pretend things out of your food."

But on this particular day, some four or five years after marching in that protest march, he asked me a heavy question while we looked through the photos on the web: "Poppie are you and Mema important?" I was stunned by his question, so I stammered a couple of minutes about knowing people and them knowing us and all, and simple left it there. Then, a few minutes later, I talked to Charla, his Mema. Her reply to me was simply put: "we're not important but the Cause is." Wish I had had those words at the moment. 

The next morning, over breakfast, I reminded him of his question. He remembered asking it. It was then that I said, "Mema and Poppie are not important, but the Cause is important." I had his attention so I attempted to say in words and phrases he could understand that Black farmers and white farmers are not treated the same. White farmers get all the money they need to farm, but Black farmers don't. When Black farmers cannot pay back their loans, men come and take away their tractors and sometimes even sell their houses and their land. I think in his young, innocent way he got it. 

I have a feeling that this young man and I will talk again. 

Sometimes the young grasp things more quickly than us older folks. 

Until we have the next conversation, my grandson will continue to read things, watch videos with his Poppie, play with his sisters, skate out front in the street with his dad and sisters, and other kid things.

I can be patient. I can wait for the next conversation. He is already good at asking perceptive questions.