By Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

"Black farmer accuses lawyer of shafting Black farmers." "Black farmer accuses
lawyer of shafting Black lawyers." "Black farmer waives ‘Wanted’ poster."
"White lawyer shouts ‘That’s not true.’" "White lawyer sues loudmouth
farmer." Well, these possible headlines have not shown up yet.

It is now a full month after a Black farmer, yours truly, Dr. Ridgely Muhammad got into a heated
debate with Attorney Alexander Pires at the Congressional Black Caucus issues forum, "What has
changed for the Black farmers?" I wrote a story about that forum by the same name, but brushed
over my personal confrontation with Mr. Pires, not tooting my own horn, so to speak. I have been
searching newspapers, the airways and Internet to see if anyone covered the story or if Mr. Pires
has filed a law suit against me for publicly accusing him of shafting both the Black farmers and
Black lawyers.

Well, I have waited long enough and since I was there and taped it, I guess that
www.MuhammadFarms.com will have to scoop the rest of the media again.

The September 11, 2002 forum was chaired by Rep. Eva M. Clayton. The panel included Lawrence C.
Lucas, President and Founding Member United States Department of Agriculture Coalition of Minority
Employees; Randi Ilsye Roth, Court Appointed Monitor Pigford v. Glickman; James Myart, Prior Class
Counsel, Pigford v. Glickman; Gary Grant, President Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association;
John Boyd, President National Black Farmers Association; and Stephen Hill, Attorney Garcia v.
Veneman. An Associate Assistant Secretary from the USDA was supposed to be on the panel, but did not
show up.

After the above mentioned panelists gave their presentations, Rep. Clayton invited Rep. John
Conyers to say a few words. Then Rep. Conyers invited Al Pires, who was not on the panel, to speak
and give his views on the Black farmers’ lawsuit (interesting). Mr. Pires goes on to bemoan how
all that he has done since he left the "Justice Department" was work for farmers.
He first pointed out how hard he had worked on the Black farmers lawsuit, then he goes on to say
that most of the work was done by the Black law firms that he invited to participate. He also
shifted some of the responsibility to Dr. Ogletree who he said was involved with the development of
the Consent Decree.

After his soliloquy, came the time for questions. Let me mention that while he was speaking I
took the opportunity to wave a copy of the "Wanted" poster that I have been distributing
all over the country with his face on it. The poster does not say what to do if one finds Mr. Pires,
but it does detail what he has done to Black farmers.

When Rep. Clayton called for questions, I immediately raised my hand. I was sitting on the first
row two seats from Al Pires, but Rep. Clayton shifted the playing field. She said that Randi Roth
had to leave early, so we should first "limit" our questions to her and her presentation.
I took down my hand. (Check)

Rep. Clayton recognized someone else to speak. That person did not address a question to Ms.
Roth, but was allowed to continue and make a statement about his personal case. So, I raised my hand
again. And when Rep. Clayton asked if it was addressed to Ms. Roth, I said, yes. So I asked,
"Why is it that the only people who got paid in this law suit are the white monitor, the white
lead counsel, the white judge, the white arbitrators; the black lawyers didn’t get paid and the
black farmers didn’t get paid?"

Before Ms. Roth could open her mouth, Mr. Pires jumps up from his seat and begins to shout.
"That’s not true. Black lawyers got most of the money. That’s not true. The Black lawyers
got the majority of the money," he shouted. I retorted by saying, "Oh yeh, you tell J.L.
Chestnut and Rose Sanders that…" Mr. Pires drowns me out by continuing to shout "That’s
not true. The Black lawyers got most of the money. Let’s get the facts out. The majority of the
lawyers were black and the majority of the moneys went to black lawyers."

Rep. Clayton jumps in by saying that we should respect each other. Mr. Pires then says, "let’s
be nice." I then said, "I don’t respect this man. That’s why I got him for ‘Wanted",
as I displayed my "Wanted" poster. I continued by saying,"… and you’ve snuck up
in the reparations thing now. You go mess that up the way you messed it up for the Black
farmers." (Ebonicly speaking, smile.)

Mr. Pires then says, "I was invited to the reparations…" I retorted, "Yeh,
because you supposedly got us $2.5 billion which you did not. That’s how you snuck up in
there."

At this point Rep. Clayton interrupts again saying, "Let’s respect each other." I
repeated, "I don’t respect this man. I was talking to her. He jumped at me. I was asking her
the question."

Pires then says, "It’s disrespectful to the majority of the black lawyers who did an
excellent job." I jumped in by saying, "You blamed…when the court came after you, you
blamed the black lawyers for your faults." Pires said, "They did a great job." I
said, "If you look at the court you told Judge Friedman that it was their fault and not yours.
That’s in the court."

Mr. Pires then goes on to talk about another case that was not in the Pigford v. Glickman Consent
Decree. I realized that I had gotten my point across so I set down and shut up.

This whole thing was staged to give Mr. Pires an opportunity to clear his name and get a set of
new black lawyers to ride with him on his new adventure, a Black reparations lawsuit that he has
already filed. And if his buddy, Judge Friedman has any thing to do with it, I am sure that Mr.
Pires’ lawsuit will be declared a class. Before the other black lawyers in the so-called
"Reparations Dream Team" can get to first base, Mr. Pires would have recruited other black
lawyers around the country to get Black people to sign on "his" dotted line.

When I referred to Judge Friedman as Al Pires’ "buddy", I did so because on that same
day this judge took the opportunity to dismiss Black farmers’ prose motions to remove Al Pires as
lead counsel. The Black farmers also asked for a hearing, but it seems that Friedman’s court
"hears no evil" with respect to Al Pires.

I don’t know how many black lawyers, Mr. Pires recruited that day, but I do know that he, his
partner and four of his staff members left this session before they could sign up a new set of
suckers. (Checkmate)

A portion of this "confrontation" will be available to be heard via the Internet. Stay
tuned to www.MuhammadFarms.com. We also have the full session on two cassette taps entitled
"Doc confronts Al Pires" for $7 per set.

Peace, Doc