It Took Place Here.....

On these sacred grounds once walked.......Wiley, Ben, Jim, Pagan, Peter, Jake, Isaac, Ned, Madison, Little John, Big John, Reddick, Asa, Chester, Darb, Oliver, Dan, and Dennis, and thousands more. They were young, age 4 (?), age 8, or older (28 or 30). They are listed along with other property. They were human beings, yet they were bought and sold.

When I heard the pastor read their names at the welcome prior to lunch on Saturday, chill bumps ran up and down my spin. I was sitting on the very place where people by those names had once trod.

And so, it was on that holy ground that we met together for the 11th Annual Black Land Loss Summit Conference. It had once been a college and after that a place that has been transformative in the lives of people seeking after justice.

Prior to that, though, it was a place of violence, a place where slaves were brought and beaten into submission. A place that had once been about injustice now held a conference about justice.

The conference actually started the day before in Tillery. Who would want to forget about that historical place?

More to come.

Out with 2008; In with 2009

So, what actually happened with the good people who have been a part of this venture over the last twelve months. Until justice comes in all of its boldness, there is always room to do more; on the other hand, I think we are only called upon to do what we can do in our own small corners of the universe. I think there will forever be this restlessness within me until Jesus comes in all of His glory. Until then, we'll just do the best we can.

In February, we traveled to Tillery and Whitakers, NC to take part in the 10th Annual Black Land Loss Summit Conference sponsored by the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association.
At that conference Justice Teams III and IV met movers and shakers in the Black farmer movement as well as some key officials in the USDA, some of whom had their names in the papers not long afterwards. Interesting for us all. Posts from February and March of this year on this blog will give you pictures, memorable moments, and memorable quotes from that amazing trip. That one is etched forever in my head and heart.

In the Spring, Justice Team III members spoke at the annual conference of the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. This link summarizes that important presentation.

We continued to collaborate with various advocates around the country, some writing articles and some writing books. All of which, we pray, will be used to tell the story of Black farmers in new places and spaces.

During the Spring, Summer, and Fall, Justice Team III lobbied with a variety of congress persons and presidential candidates on behalf of the Black farmer and family. We mailed letters and sent emails to a lot of offices, and, we even got some responses back.

Justice Team III ventured out a bit into the world of white farmers, interviewing a few and comparing and contrasting the lived experiences of white farmers versus black farmers. Were there differences. No doubt about it.

In the Spring, we recruited Justice Team IV, and those good people began to meet to formulate ideas around the notion of white privilege and how it impacts the lives of people of color, especially Black farmers.

We were able to publish a piece in a refereed journal that chronicles the larger sociopolitical historical background of the Black farmer. That was a labor of love with a competent ACU professor.

In the November, current and former students from Teams II, III and IV presented a poster at the national conference of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy in Memphis, Tennessee. A great visual was created with the assistance of professionals from the Chickasaw Nation as we attempted to compare and contrast what we called "community narratives" of Black farmers and Chickasaw Nation citizens.

In the fall, members of Justice Team IV traveled from Abilene, TX to Ada, OK to prepare for the AAMFT poster presentation. What a grand time that was.

Justice Team IV members are now preparing for a three hour workshop at the 2009 annual conference of the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

There were some wonderful times of collaboration between us and two talented musicians and one talented photojournalist. Those labors have yet to come to fruition, but I'll comment more on them in the next post. All we need there is funding to bring those efforts out into the public eye. I think they are worthy efforts because they use the gifts of quality people, telling the stories of Black farmers via photographs and music.

So, is this a time for boasting? Of course not. What in the world would we be boasting about?

Is time a time to evaluate and dream and scheme for 2009. Of course. There's always room for planning, praying, and humbling ourselves before God's mighty hand for His direction and guidance.

That's my prayer for our meager efforts for 2009.

Finally, Summit Photos

The 10th Annual Black Land Loss Summit was held February 15-17, 2008 in Tillery, NC at the Community Center and in Whitakers, NC at Franklinton Center at Bricks. It was an interesting gathering of people from across the nation who care about land loss, Black farmers, and justice.

The team from Abilene Christian University poses in front of the dormitory with Gary Grant, BFAA President. Left to right are Sarah Hugman, Rebecca Culver, Kimberly Cherry, Gary Grant, Ty Mansfield, Ruquyyah Samia, Charla Hinson, and Waymon Hinson

Gary Grant and Waymon Hinson entertain questions following Hinson's presentation on the impact of discrimination on the health and well being of farmers and families.

Scott Mexic, Director of External Affairs, Office of Civil Rights, USDA, converses with Gary Grant.

Lloyd Wright, former Director, Office of Civil Rights, USDA, and Hinson talk about racial discrimination and Black farmers.

Michael Watts, Acting Director, Office of Adjudication and Compliance, USDA, speaks to the assembly.

Spencer Wood, Ph.D., professor at Kansas State University, receives the "Man Called Matthew Award" from the Grant family for substantial contributions to the cause of Black farmers in America.

Cary White, President of the Concerned Citizens of Tillery, with ACU Social Justice Team members Ruquyya Samia and Rebecca Culver.

A summit attendee talks with ACU's MFT Social Justice Team.

Gary Grant, BFAA President, and Sherie Henry, Associate Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, USDA, talk during a break between sessions.

GaryGrant and The Watermelon Man, Vern Switzer, show his children's books.

Memorable moments from a memorable Summit

This list could be as varied as the people who'd write it down, but for me, here are some of those memorable moments:

Gifts of money and miles to get us there

Dealing with “Elizabeth” with the British accent

The welcome of the Social Justice Team from Abilene Christian University at the Franklinton
Center at the Bricks

Entering the community center at Tillery again

Friendly faces, Gary, Spencer, Cary, the Rooks brothers, Delores, Juan, and so many more

The Watermelon Man and his stories

The guard at the school

The presentation and responses to it

The shout out from the pastor in the back of the room

The question from the man at the back of the room who wanted to know if I included the “voices of the deceased”

The shift from “working the crowd” to “getting it”

Scripted speeches to impromptu emotional responses

Late night conversations with Social Justice III and IV and Gary Grant

Sitting across from the Foxworths from Mississippi at lunch and his goodbye after dinner,
telling us that they’d see us in Abilene

The hugs and kisses from Evangeline and Delores

Charla’s insightful questions and comments

Students’ insightful questions and comments

Feeling the energy in the room and hearing the sounds of approval

Stories from behind the scenes of Pigford, USDA, DOJ, Sitkof, Glickman, and Carter

Being told that our presence was important

Meeting an amazing cast of characters: farmers, retired, drummed out, still farming; USDA Office of Civil Rights employees, career versus appointed; employees of the Franklinton Center; BFAA officers; spouses of farmers; students from ECU, ACU, and WCU; academics from KSU, MSU, and ACU; former Director of Civil Rights at the USDA; L. C. Cooper; Marvin and Angie, Gary Grant, Eddie Wise; activist with Rural Coalition; writer for the Militant; writer for the Raleigh-Durham paper; the farmer who works two acres and makes a living in the area of specialty crops already sold before they’re grown; the absence of Dr. Mohammad; the Grant family: Gary Redding and his twin sister, Gloria, Evangeline, and Sky; head of agriculture at NC A & T; and so many more

Tour and background of Franklinton Center and learning more of its history

The long goodbye embraces

The conversations on the way to the airport and the meaning making that will last for a while

Memorable quotes from a memorable Summit

"The Watermelon Man can sure tell a story."

“Make our friends bigger and our enemies smaller.”

“You kicked some serious butt this morning.....I thought I was just telling the truth.”

“Trust will never come without addressing the imbalance of power.”

“I could feel the energy in the room.”

“We’re still in the kitchen.”

“I’m a farmer.”

“If you get to where you’ve been, you’ll get back to where you were.”

“Can we move from proving discrimination to exploring privilege of whites?"

“Net metering”

“It's barely 7:30......Your 7:30 lasts eight minutes.”

“How much courage did it take to call me by my first name?”

“The feels like a family vacation.”

“Johnny Rivers, South Carolina, $46K, $3 million”

“We want to earn your trust and your respect.”

“Competency, communications, customer focus, integrity”

“Spend some time to get to know us.”

“Almost over”

“65,000 denied”

“Potential cause of action”

“Right to file a new lawsuit, not to get you into Pigford”

“No reason to believe it will be like Pigford”

“Approved comments”

“We don’t do what we do very well.”

“Olive branch”

“Senior guidance”

“Hand hold you over to the right program”

“Limited, socially disadvantaged, minority, Black”

“I want to believe what I’m hearing.”

“Partition sale, nefarious, complicated, speculator, location of heirs, I’ll buy, co-equal tenant, auction, land lost”

“Stops the bleeding”

“A necessary class action”

“Glickman admitted”

“Floor….if income is below $15, then you don’t qualify for these programs.”

“Didn’t impact the rich but did the poor”

“Truth”

“There's healing in the telling”

“Faithful witness to the telling of your stories in places you can’t or won’t go”

“Acknowledgment of wrong-doing”

“Remediation, reparations, compensation for harm”

“Policy makers versus implementers”

“We can reconcile only if you the victims remain the victims.”

“I want my cow back, and the calf she bore.”

“What’s comparable to the cow?”

“The perpetrators do not get to set the rules for reconciliation and forgiveness.”

“James Cone says that the cross and the lynching tree must be placed side by side.”

If you find yourself curious about the context of these quotes, feel free to write and ask. My students and I will be happy to discuss these things with our readers.

A drop in the bucket

The 10th Annual Black Land Loss Summit convenes on Friday. We're looking forward to it with eager anticipation, my wife, my students, and I. We'll take some time off from important matters here in the MFT Department and in the Clinic and travel eastward to Whitakers and Tillery, North Carolina. People who care about land loss will travel to those rural communities for important conversations about those things that matter.

In preparation for my modest role in those meetings, I've been working with SPSS, running statistics on various aspects of information in the data base of Black farmers and family members. With their consent, information is anonymously stored there for examination.

It's all a drop in the bucket, so to speak. The data base that I have been working with contains only 45 subjects, or Black farmers and family members. There are thousands excluded from the Pigford Consent Decree. Some of them I've met, many, many more are known only by their family and friends. Some have gotten a modest settlement as part of the decree. Others are still unheard from.

Along with the numbers in the data base, I've also been re-reading transcriptions of interviews. That leads me to say to those farmers and family members, "You are not forgotten. Your story is still being told in various ways and in various places, just as we agreed." For some of you, your stories are in the archives, a place that you wished for your stories to be stored for future students and researchers to read and study. Some of you said, "Thanks, but no thanks, Dr. Hinson. You can hear my story, but I'd just as soon not have it spread out there." Those requests have been honored as well.

More than just words on a page, those are real, live images of real, live people, with legitimate claims to places and spaces. Reading the story of the farmer in his modest single-wide beneath the spreading oak tree took me back there to that morning conversation. Re-reading that interview just outside of that small southern Georgia town took me back to the conversation with the farmer now turned truck driver and his wife, and his best friend, also now turned truck driver. I can still hear the shuffle of the papers as they revealed document after document retrieved in pursuit of justice.

And, I can still hear the harmony of "Amazing Grace" between the two brothers and me in the community center there in Tillery as we began the interview.

Stories are our habituations. We live in them, so I've read. The farmers have their stories. They live in them. I've heard a few of them. Now, I live in them, insofar as a White guy from West Texas is able.

Senator Obama, You're Invited

January 10, 2008

Senator Barack Obama
713 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 29510

Dear Senator Obama:

Activists who are concerned about the cause of the African American farmer in America are deeply appreciative of your efforts in passing the amendment to the 2007 Farm Bill that will serve to reopen the Pigford Consent Decree. If the numbers are accurate, approximately 70,000 Black farmers were omitted from the possibility of receiving some measure of reparations. It is possible that the number will be perhaps even higher. We remain hopeful that the amendment will stay in the bill soon to come out of committee

We are also concerned about the title wave of land loss among Black farmers since 1920. While small farmers are losing their land to larger farming entities, Blacks are losing their land at a much higher rate.

Given these important matters, we encourage you to accept the invitation that has been offered to you by Gary Grant, President, Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, to speak at the 10th National Black Land Loss Summit in Whitakers and Tillery, North Carolina, February 15-17, 2008.

Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully,


Waymon R. Hinson, Ph.D., Kimberly Cherry, B.A.,
Rebecca Culver, B.S., Michelle Finley, B.A., Sarah Hugman, B.A.,
Heather MacLeod, B.A., Scott McBryde, B.A.