We have talked a lot about the role of the USDA in the plight of the Black farmers, but have we
asked the right questions: 1. What is the mission of the USDA, 2. what rights under the Constitution
do the Black farmers have and 3. Have Black farmers every exercised those rights?

On the surface you may think that the USDA was established to promote the well being of all
farmers, however her actions through out the years indicate that she has shown no real intent to
help Black farmers. The USDA is a part of the Executive Branch of government and therefore does the
wishes of whatever president is in office. Do you want me to start naming some good presidents that
had Black farmers interest in mind?

When the Constitution was written, Black people were slaves and had no constitutional rights. In
fact they were included as 3/5ths of a person for statistical purposes because the South wanted to
use them to get more representation, but Blacks were given no rights as slaves. As a sidebar, the
Constitution was set up to give white landowners the right to vote to put in representatives and
senators to carry forth the "business" of government to coordinate the relationship
between sovereign corporations called "states". It was set up as a "republic"
and not a "democracy". Blacks and women were not given the right to vote.

After slavery between 1865 and 1877 Blacks in the South exercised political power and were
allowed to exercise many privileges of citizens: 1, They had the right to assemble, 2. bare arms, 3.
own private property and hire themselves out for wages and 4. VOTE. However, after the Hayes’
Compromise in 1877 the Northern troops were removed from the South and the
"Reconstruction" process was replaced by political disenfranchisement, segregation and Jim
Crow. However, Blacks utilized their skills, large families and exercised their Constitutional
rights to buy and own private property in the form of farmland.

Then in 1900 America for the very first time instituted a National Census. Before that time the
US had no real idea how many Blacks there were, nor what properties did they possess. They found
that by 1900 Blacks owned about 13 million acres, but by 1910 it had risen to 16 million acres.

Mississippi Over 60%

South Carolina 50 to 60%

Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana 40 to 50%

Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia 20 to 30%

· African-Americans received patents on more than 1,200 inventions in the 50 years between
1863 and 1913.

· Early in the 20th century, black Americans established such new towns as Mound Bayou,
Mississippi,

· Nicodemus, Kans., Langston, Okla. and others.

· Boley, Oklahoma had a population of 4,000 at the turn of the century. The town was governed
and run by blacks, and boasted, among other establishments, a bank, twenty-five grocery stores,
five hotels, seven restaurants, a water works, an electric plant, four cotton gins, a bottling
works, a telephone exchange and a lumberyard.

Durham, NC "Negro Wall Street"

· In addition to 150 thriving businesses, Durham’s black commercial district was home to
an area internationally known as the "Negro Wall Street," a collection of banks and
insurance companies that represented "one of the most dramatic examples of concentrated
African American financial might this country has ever produced."

· These financial institutions were so sound that they helped virtually every black business
in Durham survive the Depression.

Tulsa, Okl "Black Wall Street"

Today, those industrial agribusinesses like confined hog growing facilities have devastated Black
communities emotionally and environmentally. In North Carolina where we have 10 million pigs plus
growing in confined facilities, we find:

The Civil Rights division was set up in the USDA to protect the rights of Black farmers in the
let 70s only to be removed in the early 80s by the Reagan administration. Finally the Black farmers
were successful in bringing the USDA to court only to be scammed by their white lawyer. The BFAA,
which started the lawsuit, did not send their lawyer to DC to get $50,000 dollars but to stop the
foreclosure on 3,000 Black farmers and get back the land that had been taken before by the USDA.
When BFAA found out what their lawyer did they went to DC to the "fairness hearing" and
protested certain provisions of the lawsuit. In particular we knew that the phrase "similarly
situated white farmer" was an escape clause for the government not to pay or remove the debt
from the legitimate Black farmers. Instead the Consent Decree, which states "Neither this
Consent Decree nor any order approving this Consent Decree is or shall be construed as an admission
by the defendant (the USDA) of the truth of any allegation or the validity of any claim asserted in
the complaint or of the defendant’s liability therefore, nor as a concession or an admission of any
fault …," paid out a lot of $50,000 checks to Black people, but not to the farmers that had
debt with the USDA. They slivered out like the snake they have always been. Judge Paul Friedman
ruled in is 39 page ruling of the Consent Decree stated, "It is a fair, adequate and
reasonable settlement."

America is set up under three branches: the executive, the judicial and the legislative. Black
farmers tried going through the administrative process within the USDA which is under the executive
branch. Black farmers did not get help there. Then they went to the courts, the judicial branch in
the Pigford v Glickman, and got tricked there. Now Black farmers are going to congress, the
legislative branch with legislation to get their land back and attempt to get the capital to
compete. We are asking you to help us get these letters signed and put in the hands of legislators.

As we pass out these letters we are educating the masses about not only the problem of the Black
farmers, but we are organizing potential markets for the Black farmers.

We must get our land back. Now they are taking away our very homes. They ran Blacks off the land,
yet we managed to retain our homes. But now they are using situations like Katrina and the new
interpretation of eminent domain to take away our homes as well. Nation wide 46.3% of Black
households own their on homes. However, in the states where we used to own farms, our percentages
are above average. Even in New Orleans’ poor Lower Ninth Ward, 60% of Black households owned their
homes.

Black Home ownership 1910 % Black farms

· South Carolina 60.9% 50 to 60%

· Mississippi 60.7% Over 60%

· Lower Ninth Ward (60%)

· Alabama 57.6% 40 to 50%

· North Carolina 52.5% 20 to 30%

· Louisiana 51.8% 40 to 50%

· Virginia 51.1% 20 to 30%

· Georgia 50.8% 40 to 50%

So here comes the flood. 400,000 Blacks were put on buses and planes and shipped off to 44
states. They were shipped to states where most Black people are still renters, like New York, where
Blacks own only 29.1% of their homes, Massachusetts 31.6%, and Minnesota 31.5%.

Mayor Nagin does not know where they are. The Louisiana State Black Caucus does not know where
they are and FEMA is doing everything it can not to tell. How can there be representation when the
people are scattered like refugees in their own country?

We know that through this letter writing and educational program we can get the masses of Black
people in the cities involved with our struggle. With numbers we can utilize our constitutional
right to vote to make the government pay, however 18,000 Black farmers scattered all across the
country have no political power.

We must inform our people to gain political leverage. We must organize our people to be the
markets for our products once we go back into business. We can’t go back into business depending
on the USDA to do the right thing when we don’t believe that she was set up to do the right thing
by Black farmers in the first place.