From Georgia’s Albany Herald:
In April of 1999, Judge Paul L. Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia approved a settlement agreement and consent decree in Pigford v. Glickman, a class action discrimination suit between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and black farmers.
The suit claimed that the agency had discriminated against black farmers on the basis of race and failed to investigate or properly respond to complaints from 1983 to 1997.
According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, “For many years, black farmers had complained that they were not receiving fair treatment when they applied to local county committees (which make the decisions) for farm loans or assistance. These farmers alleged that they were being denied USDA farm loans or forced to wait longer for loan approval than were non-minority farmers.”
“Many black farmers contended that they were facing foreclosure and financial ruin because the USDA denied them timely loans and debt restructuring.”
To date, more than $1 billion has been paid in $50,000 increments to more than 13,000 black farmers. The rub is, according to Buena Vista farmer Eddie Slaughter, many of the recipients of the settlement money are not farmers at all.
According to a July 2010 report by Kate Pickert in Time.com, the largest single settlement under Pigford went to Shirley and Charles Sherrod, who were awarded $150,000 each for pain and suffering and $13 million for the defunct New Communities Inc. farms.
“They are paying non-farmers while the bona fide black farmers are the ones who suffered the injustice,” Slaughter, who was one of 157 farmers who brought the original suit in 1997, said. “The problem is there is so much money that the lawyers got involved, telling people how to fill out the claims and how to get around not having a farm ID number.
“I know people who have gotten this money and they are not farmers. A lot of black folks look at it as reparations. But this is supposed to be about saving black farms, not reparations. If they want reparations, let them file their own lawsuit.”
Read the whole thing here.
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