Farmers from the Southern region and their supporters gathered in front of the Supreme Court building in D.C. on Friday, July 8, demanding justice for what they called an unfair settlement in a landmark class-action lawsuit and the continued discrimination by the Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The rally was spurred by the plight of North Carolina farmers Eddie and Dorothy Wise, who were evicted from their foreclosed 106-acre farm in January by armed federal marshals and several Nash County deputy sheriffs without ever being granted a hearing.
Wise, 67, a retired Green Beret, and his wife, Dorothy, a retired grants manager, had lived on the farm for more than 20 years. The eviction left the couple landless and ultimately homeless.
A GoFundMe page was made in order to help the Wise family with their expenses. Since the campaign’s creation in January, nearly $6,000 was raised, with a $50,000 goal.
“It is knowing that others care and are supportive that helps us to remain upbeat,” Eddie Wise said.
Dorothy Wise was recently hospitalized, but Gary Grant, president of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, stood at Friday’s protest on the couple’s behalf.
“Pigford should have protected the Wises from being taken off their farm,” Grant said of the Pigford v. Glickman class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which charged the department with racial discrimination. “Nothing has been done to enhance the opportunities and fairness. Only to manipulate and separate the black farmer from his community where he lives, and critically himself.”
The demonstrators said the Wises’ predicament is a microcosm of the unjust settlement terms reached in the Pigford case in 1999. The department, accused of discrimination against black farmers in its allocation of farm loans from 1981 to 1996, has paid out more than $2 billion in compensation, but detractors say that isn’t enough.
While many say that black farmers received justice in the Pigford case, Grant said it’s the complete opposite. Black farmers have been discriminated against by the Farm Service Agency (FSA) and continue to be put out of farming, denied opportunities to make a living, and lose land that affects the quality of life for them and the rural Black communities in which they live, he said.
“People think that Pigford and $50,000 settled all our issues, but it hasn’t. You can’t even buy a tractor with just that. You cannot provide a means of living with just $50,000,” Grant said. “They continue to take and foreclose black farmers. The Pigford class-action [suit] assured us a hearing before foreclosure and that has not happened. All we want is justice and equality.”
Farmers from Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky and Arkansas all traveled to the District to have their voices heard.
Muhammad Robbalaa of Oklahoma recently sat down with Congressman Markwayne Mullin about his concerns, but said he was told the government “couldn’t do anything” for him.
“I’ve learned that we need to do this ourselves,” Robbalaa said. “We cannot depend on others to help us.”
Robbalaa said the Pigford settlement “destroyed” black farmers.
“Just thinking about it makes me want to cry. This killed my brother. He had a stroke in 1990,” he said. “I went bankrupt in 1987 because they foreclosed my land.”
Source:
http://washingtoninformer.com/news/2016/jul/13/black-farmers-seek-justice-supreme-court/
