Mr. Hall meet Mr. Young; Mr. Young meet Mr. Hall

Thursday morning in Frankfort, Kentucky ought to be interesting. In a small town nearby, Harry Young, long time farmer, lives on a small portion of what was a large and successful family farm.

Unfortunately, he got in the cross-hairs of the USDA and has lost his land.

So, on Thursday there will be a "protest/teach-in" led by various and sundry people from around the area and around the country. You'll see a variety of people at the entry to the Kentucky State University campus. Originally the group was relegated to the football field, some distance from the flow of traffic, and what these folks want is visibility and notoriety for their just cause. So, the president of KSU has relented and given permission for this group to assemble in this more visible spot.

Also occurring on the very same day, Jeff Hall, Director of the FSA office for the USDA there in Kentucky, will be meeting with Black farmers to discuss the 2007 Farm Bill and its implications for them.

So, what is Harry Young, family, friends, and supporters mad about? Check out an earlier post on this blog to specific links, but in short, this story appears too massively complicated and unreal to be real. The USDA alleged that they loaned him a huge sum of money and that he didn't pay it. Mr. Young says that he never got it, that someone else must have received it. It was a rather large sum of money, in fact. However, given the huge sum of money, one would think that there would be a money trail. The USDA won't open up its books to show the evidence that it has. Mr. Young has no evidence that he got; in fact, his evidence is that he never got it. Next came the threat of selling his land. He wasn't even allowed to sell the coal beneath his land to get rid of the debt that he never incurred. Now he's lost his land, and to make matters worse, there are now reports of KKK activities on his land.

Something's just not right about this picture. Something is very, very wrong about this picture.

So, it ought to be an interesting day, November 15th, Frankfort, Kentucky, KSU campus.