by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

There is a lot of talk over the e-mail information highway about the statements made by Dr.
Ogletree at the "Where do we go from here?" event held in Philadelphia in February of this
year, 2002. It seems that Dr. Ogletree may be placing his select group of lawyers and intellectuals
as the "only" group to believe when it comes to reparations. Dr. Ogletree warned the
listeners to beware of "scam artists" and "reparations scams".

Now "isn’t that special"?

In December of 1998 and February of 1999 two members of Dr. Ogletree’s "Dream Team"
warned the Black farmers about this same type of thing. Attorney J.L. Chestnut told the Black
farmers to beware of "Johnny-come-latelies". On December 29, 1998, J.L. Chestnut addressed
a packed room of farmers and their families at an event sponsored by the Federation of Southern
Cooperatives in Albany, Ga. Fortunately, I video taped his presentation which can be seen in our
documentary, "Snake in the Reparations’ Grass".

In his presentation he said: "You have to use your head, use your heart and use your mind. I
understand some people, they been asking some of you to sign statements which supposedly will get
you more money in the lawsuit. And that paper turns out to be little more than trying to get you to
join some religious organization."

He further stated that "… all of you in this room know who has been in this case, made
this case possible and brought it to this point. You also know who wasn’t involved and all these
Johnny-come-latelies who have come out of the woodworks, now because they think farmers are going to
get some money and they want a part of that."

Mr. Chestnut was talking about this writer, Dr. Ridgely A. Mu’min, who on behalf of the Black
Farmers and Agriculturists Association was going around Georgia getting farmers to join BFAA and
prepare to ride to Washington, DC on March 2, 1999 to protest the Consent Decree that Chestnut was
selling to the Black farmers. BFAA is not a religious organization, although the vast majority of
its members are Christians. In December of 1998, I was the only Muslim farmer that was a member of
BFAA, so I know that Chestnut was trying to play the "religious card". And it worked.

At that time I had signed up most of the farmers of the vegetable co-op that I was a member of in
southern Georgia. The leadership of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, who sponsored Chestnut’s
presentation in Albany, reportedly went back to the members of my co-op and advised them to quit
BFAA, which they did.

Now for those who do not know, it was BFAA that initially started the lawsuit and through then
Executive Director, Sam Taylor, retained Al Pires to represent Tim Pigford and the class back in
1997. So BFAA was not some "Johnny-come-lately", but actually is responsible for Al Pires
and his hired front men, such as J.L. Chestnut, being involved.

On February 13, 1999 J.L. Chestnut came back to Albany to sell the Black farmers on this
"Consent Decree". This time he brought along Al Pires, U.S. House Representative Sanford
Bishop and one of Georgia’s Black House Representatives who was also a farmer. State Senator James
admonished the Black farmers for not "trusting these people" (Al Pires and J.L. Chestnut).
Al Pires told these farmers that the "system" would work. The farmers would need to show a
minimal amount of information to qualify for the $50,000 and that he guaranteed that "99.9% of
the people would get approved."

However, Tim Pigford, the lead plaintiff, did not believe Al Pires and testified at the Fairness
Hearing on March 2,1999 that he wanted the Judge, Paul Friedman, to throw out the Consent Decree
bearing his name. However, Ralph Page, the President of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives,
stood before Judge Friedman with his sidekick, Rev. Joseph Lowery, asking the judge on that same day
to "Amend it, don’t end it."

Judge Friedman agreed to "amend it" according to many of the complaints brought forward
by the farmers themselves. However, Al Pires refused to "amend it", so it was signed by
Judge Friedman in April over the objections of the majority of Black farmers who had read the
Consent Decree, including all of the six lead plaintiffs.

To be honest, the Pigford v. Glickman lawsuit should not even be called such because, the lead
plaintiff, Tim Pigford, opted out of this so-called Consent Decree and went through the USDA
Administrative complaint process. Forty percent of the applicants in the lawsuit were denied the
$50,000. Most of the "real" farmers were denied and now the USDA is trying to foreclose on
their land. The monetary awards were doled out in such a way as to insure that the farmers could not
organize their individual awards to be used as financial leverage for joint undertakings.

Furthermore, the FBI and IRS are harassing those that did get the $50,000, while Al Pires stands
to get $38 million for his services to the government. By this process, the Black farmers have
signed away their rights to ever put the USDA on trial. A better name for the Pigford v. Glickman
Consent Decree would be the "Pires & Glickman Consent Scam".

Since Al Pires and J.L. Chestnut are on this so-called "Reparations Dream Team", Dr.
Ogletree and others should beware when the masters of scam come claiming to cast out scams.
Unfortunately, there may be a sequel to the Black farmers’ demise, maybe something like, "How
40 Million Black People Got Took".