All posts in Recent News

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been the bane of American racism and held the reputation of “The Last Plantation” for decades. Twelve years after the USDA agreed to settle the discrimination illustrated in the Timothy Pigford lawsuit, the money promised remains unpaid. Pigford is proof-positive of institutional racism in America.  Occasionally, patterns of racism are scheduled for righting.  In 1999, federal courts ruled that the USDA engaged in racist practices by denying financial help to economically distressed Black farmers. Still waiting Despite having won the largest civil rights discrimination settlement in history, Black farmers are still struggling to get paid.  Flagrant discrimination has dominated Black lives on farms in America.  Although the U.S. government never followed through on its promise of “40 acres and a mule” to freed slaves, and in spite of systematic processes and programs to stymie their efforts African-Americans were able to establish a foothold in Southern agriculture. Black land ownership peaked in 1910, when 218,000 African-American farmers had ownership stakes in 15 million acres of land.  But through the machinations of Southern bureaucrats and the USDA, by 1992 Black ownership numbers had dwindled to 2.3 million acres held by 18,000 farmers. The problem is the number of Black farmers that have been forced off their land. In 1920, one out seven U.S. farms was Black-owned and operated; but by 1992 Black farmers operated just one of every 100 farms. Read more >