Meet Harry Young, Kentucky Farmer

I haven't seen or heard from Mr. Young in some time. We participated in a protest march with him, some of his family, and some of his friends a year or so ago. Now, a friend says that he's been jailed. Family members are on their way. He's 81 years of age. He's got a tobacco crop growing on his brother's land. His land has been taken away from him. He has proof that he paid the indebtedness that the USDA says he owes, but they won't let him see the documentation they have against him.

There are several things about him on this blog. Search him out, please.

Please check out the July 8, 2008 post on Mr. Young. You'll be able to see a youtube video of him speaking in DC.

Here's what I wrote in 2007.

"Harry Young is a Black farmer in Kentucky. His land had been in his family for over 100 years. Now he's been evicted and his land sold, all because he did not repay loans he did not receive. I first heard his story at the First Annual Conference on the Black Farmer and Land Loss when Mr. Young and one of his sons spoke of their family's struggles. In a brief exchange, I said to the son, "Unbelievable!" His reply? "Believe it. It's true."

The Young story is chronicled here, here, here, and here.

It should make us stop and think, and wonder, and pray, and work and pray."

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Farmer

This morning you came to mind as I read Psalm 103.

I was reminded of our conversation several months back as we sat in your kitchen there in your home not far from the Raleigh/Durham area. You were willing to talk with me, a researcher from a small west Texas university about your struggles with the USDA.

I knew I was an unwelcome guest when one of your sons came in asking "who is the clown" who parked in the middle of the drive way. My car was not in the middle of the drive way, Mr. and Mrs. Farmer, but that question served notice that there was an unwelcome guest in your home. That unwelcomed guest was me. I suspect he was trying to protect you from people who look like me. I am a white man, and I was a stranger to you and those who loved you.

I took no offense at the harshly tenored question. You were then elderly, and now even older, and an honorable son would not want his parents to be further wounded and disadvantaged by anyone. His tone and his words did put me on edge, and justifably so.

During those early moments of the interview, and even later toward the end of the interview, you commented Mr. Farmer, while Mrs. Farmer stood over against the refrigerator in the kitchen, that "He will take care of things. Pay day some day. God will take care of those who hurt people."

Then an older son came in. Mrs. Farmer, you had called him to notify him that the interviewer was there and wanted to talk to him as well. He challenged me left and right, didn't he? I personally had done no wrongs to you or to him, but "my people," those of us whose skin is white had harmed all of you. Those of us whose skin is white who live and work in positions of power and privilege had indeed harmed all of you.

You had lost your farm. You like other black farmers had been shoved to the back of the line in terms of programs and policies within the local county FSA office, a division of the USDA. Because your skin is darker than other folks, they saw you coming, ignored you, made you wait, altered your farm operation plans, and then gave you less than what you needed, and later than you could use. Then the unspeakable happened, a disaster year occurred, like it did to other farmers, yet they received disaster relief funds that saw them through, and you were not afforded the same opportunity.

There was a lot of hurt and anger, tears and sadness, and bitterness and rage that day. Some of your kin could have died. They have heart conditions. Yet they remain true to God.

They believe similar things as did the writer of Psalm 103.

I hope you all are right, that God will settle the score, that in the end things will work out right.

I only wish, Mr. and Mrs. Farmer, that you owned your land, and that your sons worked the land you and they owned.

I still remember that day in your home, Mr. and Mrs. Farmer. That day is indelibly printed in my mind and in my heart.

I still remember.

New blog, new challenge

Take a couple of moments and look at this new blog. It's about a new blog, but even more than that, it's about a new challenge. The challenge is to help save a historic farm for a brave people. It's one illustration of Black land loss in our country.

More information will posted to it shortly.

Let us know what you think.

http://grantfamilyfarm.blogspot.com/

Amazing Grace, once more...

Dear President Obama

BLACK FARMERS & AGRICULTURALISTS ASSOCIATION

& THE LAND LOSS FUND
P.O. Box 61
Tillery, NC 27887

Ph. 252-826-2800 ax: (252) 826-3244 E-mail: tillery@aol.com

http://www.bfaa-us.org/

March 1, 2009

Via Fax: 202-456-2461

President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President.

The 11th National Black Land Loss Summit was held in the historic communities of the New Deal Tillery Resettlement Farm Community (Halifax County) and Franklinton Center at Bricks (Edgecombe County) North Carolina on February 20-21, 2009. Attendees from ten states and the District of Columbia voted unanimously that we write you with the following request.

We respectfully request that you issue an Executive Order for the following:

Eliminate all debt to the USDA among black farmers who are members of the Pigford Class. These farmers have already established that they were victims of discrimination. Much of the indebtedness is from interest charges.

Provide ample dollars to compensate those who are in any legal and or Administrative Process resulting from discrimination covering the same time period (January 1, 1981 – December 31, 1996).

Insure that the elimination of this debt will not be counted as income and is therefore not taxable. Again, the majority of this debt is accrued interest.

Restore the credit rating of all of these hard-working farm families.

In 1933, members of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union expressed concern with FDR’s utilization of the county committee system to administer programs such as those in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration created in his first hundred days through the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The STFU, a biracial union of sharecroppers based in the cotton South, argued then that such a system was akin to the fox guarding the hen house.

Since then, black and limited resource farmers have been victims of local bias in the administration of public resources. Confirming the auspicious concerns of the STFU, black farms have declined by nearly 98 percent since 1920 and their farmed acreage has decreased by approximately 50 percent. This decline is worse for black farms than white farms no matter how you look at it. Further, numerous government reports (CRAT, 1997; USOCR, 1982; USDA, 1997, 1998, 2002) have found reason for concern and discrimination on the part of Lincoln’s “the people’s department,” the US Department of Agriculture. It seems that the fox has grown mighty fat on its regular diet of black farms.

In response to the decades of inaction, black farmers successfully sued Secretary Glickman and the Department of Agriculture in the now historic Pigford v. Glickman 1997 suit. The result was the largest class-action civil rights settlement in the history of the country. Black farmers, long known as cornerstones of the 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement, have led again, this time challenging one of our largest public institutions, the USDA. Put another way, Pigford v. Glickman stands as a civil rights case of nearly the same magnitude as Brown v. Board of Education. While Brown v. Board of Education overturned the famous Plessy v. Ferguson ruling. Pigford v. Glickman challenges a key component of the persistent wealth inequality between African Americans and Whites. Since 1865 the percent of total wealth in the country owned by African Americans has doubled from one half of one percent to one percent as of 1990. The loss of nearly eight million acres of farmland since 1920, while a small percentage of the total US farm acreage, is devastating to the African-American community.

You have correctly, to our minds, identified the need to protect the property investments of millions of Americans that are at risk due to the recent mortgage crisis and faltering economy. Your omission, however, is in abandoning the case of African-American farmers, who also were the “middle class” of rural black communities. These farmers need to also be included in any reasonable effort to protect the wealth base of our nation’s most vulnerable populations.

Further, we urge you to act with all deliberate speed to ward against the failures of any additional black farmers and sign this Executive Order such that it will go into effect by April 15th.

Like farmers everywhere, we hope for good weather and bountiful crops. Like you, Mr. President, we also hope and are working diligently for a future of fairness and equality that rewards us for our efforts, but does not punish us for the color of our skin.

We would also request a conversation in person with you about these important matters related to the survival of the Black farmer, landowner, and family.

Yours for the Survival of the Black Farmer and Landowner,

Gary R. Grant
President

Attachment: Statistics on Black Land Loss

STATISTICS THAT SPEAK WITH HISTORIC CLARITY: BLACK LAND LOSS

In 1920, 1 in every 7 farmers was Black.

In 1982, 1 in every 67 farmers was Black.

In 1910, black farmers owned 15.6 million acres of farmland nationally.

In 1982, Black farmers owned 3.1 million acres of farmland nationally.

In 1950, Black farmers in NC owned 1.2 million acres of land.

In 1982, Black farmers in NC owned only 400,000 acres.Between 1920 and 1992 the number of Black farmers in the U.S. declined from 925,710 to 18,816 or by 98 percent.

In 1984 and 1985, the USDA lent $1.3 billion to farmers nationwide to buy land. Of the almost 16,000 farmers who received those funds, only 209 were Black.

Almost half of all black-operated farms are smaller than 50 acres.

In the late 1980's, there were less than 200 African-American farmers in the United States under the age of 25.

In 1993, an Associated Press analysis found, Black farmers on average received $21,000 less than White borrowers from a Farmers Home Administration loan program.

In 1983, 1.3 percent of 1.45 million farmers were Black.

In 1996, 0.5 percent of 1.31 million farmers were Black. During the same period the percentages of females and Hispanic farmers increased.

In North Carolina there has been a 64% decline in African American farmers in the past 15 years, from 6, 996 farms in 1978 to 2, 498 farms in 1992.

Between 1992 and 1997, the percentage of Black or other none white full owner farmers in Halifax County dropped from 25.44% to 19.73%.

However, at the same time, the number of “part-owner” farmers in Halifax County increased by 17.86%. This is due primarily to Heir Property System.

A Few Candid Shots from the Summit

Thanks to Spencer Wood, Ph.D., professor of sociology, Kansas State, for his photography. The conference was attended by farmers, spouses, activists, attorneys, professors, and government workers. Topics included sustainability efforts, biofuels, the impact of discrimination on the health and well being of farmers and family members, organic farming, and other topics.

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.