by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

J. Kavin Ross of the Oklahoma Eagle in his March 18, 2004 article called "Black hoax or
Black Fact?" exposes that Black people may have been "…hoodwinked and bamboozled by a
scam artist." African Americans in Oklahoma rushed to the post office late Monday, March 12,
2004 to meet a March 15 deadline with the Black Farmers and Agriculturalist Association, Inc.

This organizer promised that those who met the deadline would recover as much as $50,000 per
claimant. The potential claimants were told that the United States Department of Agriculture has
over $11 billion dollars owed to descendants of slave and it is locked away. This organizer is
referring to the now closed Pigford vs.. Glickman Black farmers’ class action lawsuit whose
deadline for filing was October12, 1999. Although the lawsuit filing date is far in the past, this
organizer claims that a "petition" drive can force the courts to accept new claimants and
that the claimants need not be farmers, just Black.

In February 2004, a representative from the monitor’s office was asked at a meeting of Black
farmers in Albany, GA, if there was any legal way of reopening the case so that new applicants could
be considered. The representative said that "…there was no legal way to reopen the lawsuit
for new applicants," but the appeal process was getting some denials reversed. A review of the
monitor’s website (www.pigfordmonitor.org)
indicates that over 22,159 "Track A" applications had been accepted in the lawsuit. As of
March 15, 2004 only 61% of the claims were ruled in favor of the claimants, and 39% had been denied.
Although the monitor’s office stated that some denials had been reversed, according to their own
website, no one else has gotten paid in 2 years. The total money dispersed to these claimants
remains at about $818,450,387, which is far below the $2.4 billion that the government claimed as
the value of this lawsuit much less, $11 billion.

Now this organizer offers this bogus petition of hope who has been so successful that the Post
Office investigator from Covington, TN has called Mr. Gary Grant, the president of original Black
Farmers and Agriculturalist Association (BFAA) to find the person in Tennessee that has a post
office box overflowing with these applications, in order to ask his some questions.

According to the J. Kevin Ross article, the national office of the Better Business Bureau has
issued a public statement:

"Callers to the Better Business Bureau of the MidSouth have indicated that this company,
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, Inc., is soliciting $100 from consumers and
attempting to gain signatures for a petition. The Better Business Bureau has requested basic
information about the organization on two occasions by mail and the company has declined to
provide any information. As of January 28, 2004, two phone numbers for the company have recordings
stating that their voice mailbox is full, therefore, the Better Business Bureau has been unable to
contact the company by phone."

The Better Business Bureau is not the only recipient of many calls and e-mails trying to find out
if this petition scheme is legit and will offer what is promised. Ironically, many of these calls
have come to the office of Mr. Gary R. Grant, the President of the original Black Farmers and
Agriculturalists Association (BFAA). Mr. Grant has stated that his office receives about 15 calls
per day and over the last few months, hundreds of e-mails concerning this scheme. The confusing
issue is that there are 2 organizations calling themselves BFAA. The original BFAA, established in
1998 and incorporated in the state of North Carolina in 1999. The original BFAA was the organizing
force that resulted in the Pigford vs. Glickman lawsuit. However, this same BFAA organization
fought their own lawyer, Al Pires, and the federal judge, Paul J. Friedman, to fix or get rid of the
lawsuit, once the farmers saw what was in it.

The original BFAA continued to fight the lawyers, the court and USDA on the Black farmers’
behalf until the Republicans took over the White House, the congress and used Mr. Tom Burrell to
orchestrate a coupe of BFAA leadership in July of 2002. According to Mr. Grant, Tom Burrell told him
in person, that someone "high up in the USDA said that the president of BFAA is too supportive
of the ‘Democrats’ and that if he is removed there may be some funds that could be made
available to BFAA."

BFAA never endorsed a Democrat nor Republican, but the BFAA membership had a policy that since
"BFAA" was an advocacy organization for the Black farmers, it would not accept any money
from the USDA as an organization until all of the Black farmers had gotten paid and their debt
forgiven. BFAA virtually stayed on the steps of the USDA and DC Federal Court, becoming a thorn in
the government’s side.

After Mr. Burrell found out that he could not legally take over the organization without getting
a vote from the membership, he then incorporated another Black Farmers and Agriculturalists
Association in the state of Delaware in the fall of 2002 that would accept USDA money. So now there
are two groups calling themselves BFAA, the original BFAA with national headquarters in Tillery, NC
and the new BFAA, Inc physically working out of a P.O. box in Covington, TN. BFAA, Inc. did not get
the promised "payoff" from the USDA, but now the Delaware incorporated BFAA, Inc is the
promoter of this petition scheme. The president of BFAA, Inc has not made himself available to
answer questions, so the people call Mr. Grant, who was reelected president of BFAA in 2003.

We received a passionate response by Mr. Grant on March 19, 2004 where he stated:

"I have found it most difficult and disturbing at the same time that people would go
through so much trouble, searching the Internet, trying to find a working fax or phone number in
TN and find the real BFAA’s web site with a letter explaining that what BFAA, Inc. is doing is
nothing but a scam, would then still call me in North Carolina.

Then after me and my staff would take the time to explain the whole history of the law suit and
what we new about this scam, they would rather take their chances on a dream of something for
nothing, $50,000, and not want to join the REAL BFAA to continue the protracted fight to change
the policies at the USDA, get back land taken by the USDA and remove racist bigots who continue to
commit atrocious attacks on Black farmers through denials of loan, denial of programmatic
assistance and foreclosures.

Maybe the most hurtful thing of all is that in July of 2002 we had the USDA on the ropes to
institute a memorandum of understanding to stop foreclosures on Black farmers, stop the taking of
income tax refunds and program payments of Black farmers still in the appeal process of Pigford v.
Glickman. If Mr. Burrell and his cohorts had waited just two more weeks, the Black farmers could
have received a measure of relief. Instead Mr. Burrell and his cohorts went to the USDA to stop
the negotiation process and beg for ‘30 pieces of silver’.

We have not wanted to go public with this split for sake of unity. We have not attacked Mr.
Burrell nor attempted to destroy his organization. But we must defend the integrity of the
original BFAA and those that depend on us to fight the USDA on behalf of Black farmers. This is a
said day. How much more blood must the Black farmers shed?"