"Reparations" should mean "repair" not snare. In our last article entitled
"Snake in the Reparations’ Grass" we emphasized how the Black farmers were caught in the
snare of their lead attorney, Alexander Pires. And now that same type of "snake"
mentality may be at the negotiations table for general reparations for Black people.

In November of 1998 after the infamous Pigford v. Glickman Consent Decree was brokered by the
USDA and Al Pires, I wrote an article called "Reparations: Money or an Industry". I
wrote:

"If the government gives $50,000 to every Black man, woman and child, what good would it
do? What industries would Black people invest in to gain control over?

Every other ethnic group that comes to America seems to focus on a certain sector of the economy
and move in. Look at how many motels are owned by East Indians. Look at how many curb markets are
owned by the Koreans and Arabs. What industry do we want: agriculture ($124 billion), mining ($127
billion), construction ($730 billion),

manufacturing ($4.1 trillion), transportation and utilities ($1.1 trillion), wholesale and
retail ($4.3 trillion), finance, insurance and real estate ($2.2 trillion), services ($1.6
trillion)?

…To control any industry you need capital, cooperation, a willingness to sacrifice, a long
term commitment, knowledge of the industry, a readiness to fight if necessary to protect it. In
other words, money by itself is not the answer. We already have access to over $500 billion per
year in spending change. What are we doing with that?"

In other words money in the hands of individual "children" is like giving a loaded gun
to somebody contemplating suicide. The idea of "reparations" is not new and feasible
solutions have been offered. In fact the Honorable Elijah Muhammad placed a solution on the back of
the "Muhammad Speaks Newspaper" and now Minister Louis Farrakhan publishes that same
"solution" on the inside cover of the "Final Call Newspaper". It is item number
4 of "What the Muslims Want":

"4. We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from
slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own –either on this
continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land
and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave masters are
obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years
— until we are able to produce and supply our own needs."

America never gave Blacks this type of "repair-ations" and many Blacks did not want
that type of "repair-ations" and don’t want it now. Instead they would be happy with
$50,000 so they could go out and rent an overpriced "chariot" and go to the fanciest
restaurant to sit down next to the children of their former slave master. The Honorable Elijah
Muhammad warned Black America about the trick and snare of "integration" in point number
9 of "What the Muslims Believe":

"9. WE BELIEVE that the offer of integration is hypocritical and is made by those who are
trying to deceive the Black peoples into believing that their 400-year-old open enemies of freedom,
justice and equality are, all of a sudden, their ‘friends’…."

These prophetic words were written in the 1960’s. I have lived to see those words become
history. The Muslims asked for separation. The "negro" leaders asked for integration.
America "integrated" the schools and lunch counters. Why did not the "good"
white folks integrate their banks and churches?

Now Black people are still complaining about the quality of education and dying of "Mad Cow
Burgers" at "Murder King", "MacDeath", "Wind Dies" and Heart
Disease".

Urban Renewal was really "Urban Removal" and once thriving Black business districts
were bulldozed over. They bombed them like in Tulsa in 1921 but more sophisticated and with our own
consent. Damned, they good!

The Black farmers asked for land and Al Pires gave them a "lottery ticket" for the
chance of winning $50,000. And the news media hailed him as the "second coming", a good
white Jewish lawyer like the now deceased William Kunstler.

Secretary Dan Glickman came to Albany, Georgia back in January of 1997 and I told him then that
the USDA was being hypocritical when offering loans to the Black farmers after all these years when
they know that most Black farmers are small farmers and that small farmers can not compete. The
1996 farm bill set a time table for the elimination of most government subsidies to farmers. Dan
Glickman himself began the process of reducing the size of the USDA personnel out in the
countryside. In other words they are now telling the Black farmers that they can participate
equally in "nothing", because the government is getting out of agriculture.

As government goes out, big business steps in. Big chemical interests have taken over
agriculture and now poisons are being sprayed on our food to give us cancer. "Organo-phosphates"
are the major ingredients in most pesticides. Organo-phosphate is commonly known as "nerve
gas".

So now America is putting guns in the hands of Black people in the cities while she is slowly
poisoning them with her food and the fake "remedies" which the same chemical companies
produce as cures for the sickness caused by the food.

Just today, July 23, 2001, there was a report aired on the evening news on Channel 10 in Albany,
Georgia, that the third most commonly prescribed drug in America, "synthroid",  has
been on the market for 40 years, but has not been approved by the FDA. And I bet you believed that
the FDA was looking out for you. And if you are thinking, "If they kill black folk, then they’ll
kill white folks too", just remember "But they’ll kill three of them just to get one of
you" (line from "Terminator Genes").

After they eliminated the Black family farmer, the "Beast"
turned his attention to the white family farmers. Open up your eyes and read what is happening to
them.

"Separation" or "integration", "pay-off" or "repair-ations"?

Make your choice, it’s "judgment time".

But don’t be a victim of the "Perfect Crime".

Peace, Doc

(For archived articles click The Farmer Newsletter)

(For history of the lawsuit click Perfect Crime)

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

"History rewards all research". We may chose to ignore it, but ignorance has it’s
price. Over 40 percent of the class members in the Black farmers’ lawsuit against the USDA have
been denied. Only $8 million in debt relief has been forgiven of the over $500 million that was
forecasted. Only $500 million of the promised $2.5 billion has been dispensed to the claimants. No
stolen land has been returned to the Black farmers. Most of the farmers that went in Track
"B" have been offered pennies on the dollars of damages caused by the USDA and Alexander
Pires is proclaimed as some type of hero.

The Black Farmers and Agriculturists Association (BFAA) asked Sam Taylor, a Black lawyer, to
develop a lawsuit against the USDA. He could not practice law in DC, so he presented a
"good" white lawyer to the Black farmers to work on their behalf. November 5, 1998 the
Black farmers read the consent decree and realized immediately that they had been had. Al Pires then
goes and gets other Black lawyers, such as J.L. Chestnutt, to go around the country and pump up this
out of court settlement and throw dispersions on the very farmers who started the process but were
now discontent with this document that they did not approve of. Al Pires even called the president
of one our Historically Black Colleges to have them stop giving the Black farmers a place to meet on
campus to organize against the Consent Decree that he wrote.

Many Black farmers have lost their farms, not received any money and some have even died under
the stress of fighting a losing battle against the USDA "dogs" on the outside and the
lawyer "snakes" on the inside. And now Al Pires, "top snake", has been invited
into the inner circle of the Reparations think tank. As a farmer, when a rattlesnake comes out of
the bushes and tries to cross the road, you use your pickup truck tires to make sure that it does
not get across. Al Pires is crossing that road.

According to the "American Lawyer", July 2001 edition, the litigation side of the
dispute includes:

As a further indication of what type of settlement may be reached by this reparations "Dream
Team", the article states:

Jim Crow laws, or whose grandparents were slaves."

In the Black farmers’ lawsuit each Black farmer had to prove discrimination as if a
"class" was never established and he had to find a "similarly situated" white
farmer to compare himself to. Now Black Americans will have to prove individually how they were
affected by slavery and/or prove direct lineage to a slave. I see DNA testing of all possible
claimants on the horizon. What can the US government and its many private bioweapons manufacturing
allies do with the DNA profiles of each Black person in America? Hmmmmmm?

One might find a clue in former Defense Secretary Cohen’s statement, "that the science
community is ‘very close’ to being able to manufacture ‘genetically engineered pathogens that
could be ethnically specific’". (Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity, 1999, p.55)

Seems like a "snake" has been groomed, presented and strategically placed in a coiled
position to do to the total Black population what it did to the Black farmers, but better. If our
Brother Randall Robinson doesn’t know, he needs to ask somebody whose been bit.

The Black farmers asked for their land back. Instead they were offered $50,000 which most, who
were actual farmers, never got. They had to prove individually that they were discriminated against
as though they were not a "class" and now each Black person will have to prove how
"Black" they are. The lawyers and the government now have the names and addresses of over
30,000 potential or actual Black farmers and would not turn that list over to BFAA, the very
organization that started the lawsuit. The government and the lawyers evidently do not want the
Black farmers to know each other, organize and pool their resources to put the Black farm industry
back in place. "Reparations" should mean "repair".

When Al Pires is finished the government will have the DNA profiles of each Black person in
America. These Black people will be offered crumbs for their ancestors’ blood. The white
establishment will get those disorganized, non-wealth producing crumbs back within a few hours, but
keep the DNA. And in the end Al Pires will have produced a snare and not repair.

A real "Repair-ations" alternative will be discussed in the next article.

Peace, Doc

(For archived articles click The Farmer Newsletter)

(For history of the lawsuit click Perfect Crime)

Main
Page

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

The gallant efforts of the Associated Press writers who put together the series "Torn from
the land" is like the cavalry riding into the fort after everybody has been massacred. In this
case, not only did the cavalry arrive late, but they failed to report the real news. I was waiting
to see if they would report the "real news" or the "rest of the story" before I
tore into them.

We thank the Associated Press writers for exposing the individual acts of terrorism perpetrated
against Black farmers and land owners. I am sure that the public after reading these articles may
ask: "Where was the government? Why don’t the Black farmers organize and fight back?" I
asked those same questions myself waiting for that next expose that might answer such questions.
Maybe there is another set of writers and investigative reporters busy gathering the
"facts" and in two to five years may come forth with the set of definitive articles that
expose the United States culpability in the loss of Black farm land. Of course by that time, most of
the Black farmers who were denied justice under the Pickford vs. Glickman lawsuit will have lost
their land and some their lives in their unpublicized battle against the USDA and the Bar. By that
time a general Black Reparations’ lawsuit would have been "won" filled with holes for
Black lives and hopes to fall through.

In 1997 a Black lawyer, James Myart, filed a suit in federal court, Williams, Long, Herrera,
Bowie and Powell Vs Secretary of Agriculture, but the judge ruled it was too broad to define a
class. Then Al Pires steps in and convinces the farmers to follow him. Eventually the Pigford vs.
Glickman lawsuit is settled out of court. A Consent Decree was signed by Judge Paul Friedman in
April of 1998, but as of January of 2002 only 60% of those in the class have been approved for
compensation. Most of the 40% that were denied were actual farmers who might now lose their land due
to USDA foreclosures.

The struggle of the Black farmers against the USDA, Justice Department and Al Pires from December
of 1998 to April of 2001 has been documented in the video "Snake in the
Reparations’ Grass" and covered by many articles in "The
Farmer Newsletter" and on the Black
Farmers and Agriculturists Association’s web page. These articles gives you an overview of the
struggle, but now we want to get on a more personal level so that our readers will understand the
price that Black farmers and their advocates must pay to save farm land. The Black farmers have been
fighting back but their voices have not been heard.

In 1992 Robert and Laverne Williams of Roscoe, Texas, hired a Black lawyer, James Myart, to file
suit against the USDA based on discrimination by their local county supervisor in Texas. Mr. Myart
had finished high school at 16 and by the age of 22 he was teaching English at the University of San
Antonio. He went to law school and got his law degree in two years from the University of Texas at
Austin.

In 1993 the USDA sent Carlton Lewis to San Antonio who negotiated an administrative settlement for
$1.3 million with Mr. and Mrs. Williams.  However, the Office of General Council ruled that Mr. Lewis did not
have the authority
to make a ruling or settlement, so the USDA reneged. Mr. Myart retaliated in 1994 by filing a $5
million lawsuit against the USDA while Mike Espy, the first Black Secretary of Agriculture was in
office. The Justice Department hired an attorney to be the arbitrator. The arbitrator advised the
USDA to settle. The Justice Department hired another arbitrator and this one said according to Mrs.
Williams, "I only have on thing to say. The Williams’ have gone through enough. You need to
settle." The Williams’ thought they had won a settlement of $1.4 million and went back to
Texas.

Secretary Espy had agreed to sign the paperwork in December of 1994 granting the $1.4 million to
the Williams’. However, the head lawyer for the USDA took the papers and went on a "hunting
trip". Supposedly, nobody knew where the lawyer went or what happened to the paperwork.
Secretary Espy was taken out of office on December 30, 1994. Mrs. Laverne Williams suffered her
first heart attack in January of 1995.

Dan Glickman became Secretary of Agriculture in 1995 and was debating on settling with the
Williams’ when he received a phone call from the then Chairman of the House Agricultural
Committee, Charlie Stanhorn from Texas. According to Mrs. Williams, Charlie told Glickman, "If
you settle this case with them niggers down there, I’m going to have problems with the white boys
down here." Glickman did not settle with the Williams.

Instead Glickman reopened the Office of Civil Rights that had been closed under the Reagan
administration in 1982. Pearly Reid was appointed Assistant Secretary in charge of Civil Rights and
Lloyd Wright was appointed as Director of the Office of Civil Rights. Starting in 1996 Reid and
Wright began to settle a few of the backlogged cases through the administrative process that were
sitting since 1982. Some of these cases included those brought forward by James Myart including
Richard and Matthew Grant and John Boyd. Mr. Boyd received a full settlement and one of the Grants
received a partial settlement. The stress of fighting within the system for Black farmers appeared
too great for Mr. Reid and Mr. Wright. Mr. Reid went back to the Forestry Branch of the USDA and Mr.
Wright retired.

However, the Justice Department would not allow Mr. Myart to take the Williams case back through
the administrative process. He went to Maxine Waters, then head of the Congressional Black Caucus,
to get help against the Justice Department and USDA. However, the Justice Department still held the
Williams’ hostage to punish Mr. Myart for being too outspoken on the Hill.

The Justice Department finally agreed to relieve the USDA debt against the Williams’ but would
not give them a cash settlement. Mr. Myart then went back to the USDA which promised that the
Williams’ could go back to their local county supervisor and reapply for loans. This was the same
county supervisor who had discriminated against them before. The Williams’ then went to another
county in 1998 and were told that they had an approved loan only to find out in 1999 that they were
not to get the loan which exposed them to civil lawsuits by their creditors. Mrs. Williams has now
suffered three heart attacks in her and her husband’s continuing saga against the USDA.

Back in 1996, realizing that he had ruffled some feathers in DC, Mr. Myart then introduced one of
his clients, Mr. John Boyd, to Maxine Waters and the new director of the Civil Rights Division,
Rosalind Gray as the spokesman for Black farmers. Through these connections Mr. Boyd was able to
facilitate settlement through the Administrative process for a few other farmers in 1996. Mr. Boyd
then spoke out against going through the Class action process and it appears began to undermine the
work of Mr. Myart.

In the meantime, it is alleged that Mr. Myart turned down the case of Mr. Tim Pigford because his
case was not strong enough. His own class action suit, Williams, Long, Herrara, Bowie and
Powell Vs Secretary of Agriculture was ruled to be too broad by Judge Freidman in 1997. Mr. Pigford
then went to Sam Taylor who introduced him to Alexander Pires who agreed to take his case. Mr. Myart
worked with Al Pires to help him develop his case against the USDA. Mr. Myart turned over valuable
information and helped to develop strategies to help Al Pires settle what had become the
Pigford vs. Glickman Class Action Lawsuit.

While in a heated debate with USDA lawyers, trying to arrange a settlement for one of his
clients, Mr. Myart reportedly blurted out, "You are as stingy as a damned Jew."  Mr. Myart was
disbarred in 1998 for two years. Although the accusation of "anti-Semitism" is used to
explain Mr. Myart’s demise, there is a nagging suspicion within the Black farm movement that Mr.
John Boyd and his cohorts stood most to gain from his disbarment.  This of course left the
new comer, Al Pires as the lead attorney and advocate for the Black farmers who settled the Pigford
vs. Glickman lawsuit out of court on November 3, 1998.

The Black farmers did not know what was in this "settlement" until November 5, 1998.
After reading the proposed Consent Decree, the BFAA organized the farmers to protest the wording and
provisions of the decree in March of 1999. At the fairness hearing even the lead plaintiff, Mr.
Pigford, begged Judge Friedman to throw this Consent Decree out. However, Al Pires objected to any
changes brought forward by the farmers and Judge Freidman signed the decree in April of 1999.

According to the provisions of the Consent Decree, a monitor was supposed to be put in place
immediately to insure a fast and just settlement. The deadline for filing was set for October of
1999. However, the monitor was not put in place until a year later, April of 2000, after 40% of the
applicants had been denied, again, "too little, too late."

Again, yes the Black farmers were "Torn from the land" by individuals in cahoots with
the USDA who shielded the county supervisors, lost documents and falsified records, the US Congress
who turned a deaf ear, the Justice Department that prosecutes "victims only" and lawyers
working both sides of the isle on behalf of the "Bar" and not the people. In later
articles we will bring you more specific cases of how the "tearing" is still going on in
the 21st century. We will also expose how the US Government, state governments, local officials and
lawyers have conspired to leave a people landless, helpless and broken, not by slavery, but by the
tricknologists and terrorists of the modern age.

The Fourth National Black Land Loss Summit will be held in Atlanta, Ga from February 8-10, 2002 with the
theme "Steps to Healing the Land". As a part of this summit many of the Black farmers’
stories and struggle will be told and strategies for "healing" will be discussed. For more
information contact Gary Grant, President of BFAA, at (252) 826-2800.

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.

On January19, 2006 a Black man, Clarence "Clint" Walker was killed while in police
custody in Marshallville, GA. Witnesses state that he was killed by excessive force and police
negligence.

On September 28, 1829 David Walker, a free black born in 1796 or 1797 in Wilmington, North
Carolina, wrote and published one of America’s most provocative political documents of the
nineteenth century. Decrying the savage and unchristian treatment blacks suffered in the United
States, the Walker Appeal challenged his "afflicted and slumbering brethren" to
rise up and cast off their chains. Walker worked tirelessly to circulate his book via underground
networks in the South, and he was so successful that Southern lawmakers responded with new laws
cracking down on "incendiary" anti-slavery material and a bounty of $10,000 was put on his
head.

However, if it is one thing that we have learned from history is that most of us never learn
anything from history, thereby forcing us to live that history all over again. Now another incident
of a Black man being killed by the "authorities" under questionable circumstances has
popped up to bite us once again. On January19, 2006 a Black man was killed while in custody in
Marshallville, GA.

From witness statements, the Marshallville, GA police department was in shambles before the
morning of January 19, 2006. The community is concerned as to how some of that may have played out
in what really happened in the incident on the evening of January 19.

The Black community of Marshallville, GA is now wrestling with the next steps to take that will
help Marshallville to begin its healing. Will the city authorities move towards a cover-up which
will prolong the healing that is essential for all involved?

The Concerned Citizens for Truth met on Sunday, January 29, 2006 to devise an action plan for the
prevention of other senseless murders in the Marshallville community. Present at this meeting were
citizens from the Marshallville area, Montezuma and Ft. Valley, GA and Terrell Count Georgia. Some
of the questions discussed at the meeting included:

Why was the least experienced officer placed in a position of harm apprehending a suspect? Why
was the chief not on the scene?

Why was the least experienced officer forced to be the "in charge" person when there
was a senior officer present?

Why was the least experienced officer then left with the apprehended subject while the senior
officer drove to retrieve the police car? Why was the least experienced officer left at the police
department while the chief left town driving an ambulance?

Why was the media more concerned about a house that caught on fire after the death of Mr. Walker,
than on the death of Mr. Walker, a human being? Why was the media portraying the Black citizens of
Marshallville, like they did the victims of Katrina in New Orleans, as angry and out of control,
when in fact all they have been asking for were answers?

These and more questions await answers. One Marshallville resident comments, "There was a
human way of apprehending Clint". "The officer should not have been put in that position
by his superior", writes another. Where then is the issue of administrative negligence? Was
there even failure to ensure the deployment of correct procedure?

Members of the Concerned Citizens for Truth are also worried about future such incidents because
the police chief and some of his deputies have just come home from being deployed in Afghanistan and
Iraq as members of the National Guard from Georgia. The community wants to know what was done to
help these soldiers make the adjustment from a battle front to civilian life as law enforcement
officers among a friendly civilian population at home. The community wants to know whether the
training and desensitizing effect of warfare has now filtered into how these police officers deal
with our Black population at home.

To this extent The Concerned Citizens for Truth developed an action plan which includes holding a
community forum to educate and inform citizens of their rights and responsibilities when
encountering law enforcement officials.

"We are inviting representatives and spokespersons from the different law enforcement
agencies to be on a panel to give instructions and information from the authorities over the
community to explain to members of the community how they should respond when approached by law
enforcement authorities", says Mr. Argo Winston, president of the Concerned Citizens for Truth.

"We are appealing to our people, especially our young Black men, to come out and find out
how to deal with a police force that may see them as enemies to the state," says Sis. Anne
Muhammad, concerned citizens member and member of the Nation of Islam in Terrell County Georgia.

As of the writing of this article, the City of Marshallville has refused to meet with the
Concerned Citizens for Truth, and they have refused to allow them to rent public facilities to hold
public meetings on these issues.

For more information call: Argo Winston at (478)967-2984.

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

"BUT, following a people who the Holy Qur’an describes as ‘eating like a beast’ (white
race)—they eat anything that they want to eat and they do not care concerning the harm that it is
doing to their life." (p53)

"TO EAT MEAT is against our life and shortens the span of our life. We eat meat because it
is a habit from childhood." (p.63)

"FASTING DOES much for us. A three-day fast will tell the story – you feel better; your
body begins to feel lighter and not weighty as it felt when it was filled with food; your thinking
is clearer." (p.46)

"Both the libation and the practice of cutting off the heads of sacrificial beasts are
common to all Egyptians in all their sacrifices, and the latter explains why it is that no Egyptian
will use the head of any sort of animal for food." (P. 144; Herodotus)

"I will describe some of their (Egyptian) habits: every month for three successive days they
purge themselves, for their health’s sake, with emetics and clysters, in the belief that all
diseases come from the food a man eats; and it is a fact – even apart from this precaution –
that next to the Libyans they are the healthiest people in the world." (p.158; Herodotus)

The first three quotations are from "How to Eat to Live" by the Honorable Elijah
Muhammad. The next two quotations are from "Herodotus: The Histories" written 2,400 years
ago. The rest of this article chronicles just one example of how we pay for ignoring the divine
guidance of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and not following the traditions of our ancestors who
built the pyramids and a civilization that prospered for at least 4,000 years and fell only because
of invading barbarians (white folk).

Just before X-mas America admitted that there are some "mad cows" in the house. Has one
of Saddam’s secret "weapons of mass destruction" finally reached America? No, "mad
cows" are a product of human behavior right here in the good old USA and not some virus lurking
in some dark corner of the world just waiting to jump out at the innocent. "Mad cows" are
made by "mad", greedy people who run their world based on lies and tricknology. They lie
to the consumer and trick cows to eat themselves. In fact they cut off the heads of cattle, grind
them up and mix these "renderings" back into the feed for the cattle, turning herbivores
into cannibals and making them go "mad".

Since the outbreak of the disease in Canada, the USDA has increased the testing of cattle for the
disease. Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman said that her department tested 20,526 cattle for
mad cow disease last year out of approximately 35 million commercially slaughtered cattle.  The
only reason that they test any animal is that the animals can’t stand up when they go to the
slaughter house. When they spot a "downer", as they call it, they still slaughter the
animal, as they did this one on December 9th, and send it through the food system. They send brain
samples off to a laboratory in Iowa and then Britain, then two weeks after the animal parts are in
the food chain, they make the announcement. Now how smart is that?

According to ABC News seven states are trying to track down pieces of this slaughtered "mad
cow". But not to worry, they have quarantined the herd and are blaming Canada for exporting
this sick animal to America 4 1/2 years ago or maybe 6 1/2 years ago, depending on who you want to
believe. Quarantining the cattle herd is not the way to stop the disease. "Where is the feed
that this sick animal ate?", should be the question. Since the practice of feeding cow brains
back to cows was supposedly banned in 1997, revisionist spin doctors are trying to get the infected
cow’s age "right". We wonder how many times the age of this cow will have to change?
(smile)

On the other hand three and one half years ago when the Japanese discovered their first case of
"mad cow" disease, they went to mandatory testing of every head of cattle that went to
slaughter. According to a December 25, 2003 New York Times article called "Expert Warned That
Mad Cow Was Imminent", Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurologist who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in
Medicine for his work on prions, stated that the Japanese testing procedure produced this fall two
new cases of the disease in animals aged 21 and 23 months. The "mad cow" in Washington
state was 4 1/2 OR 6 years old.(smile)

Dr. Prusiner visited the Secretary of Agriculture six weeks ago to encourage her to broaden the
mandatory testing procedure because he felt that an outbreak of this deadly disease was destined for
America. His warnings were ignored and even now the USDA is trying to minimize the perception of
danger by claiming that the infected cow was born in Canada.

The USDA knows that this disease is caused by the behavior of the feed industry and not isolated
to a particular condition at a farm. The history of identifying this disease goes back to studies
done in the early 1900’s on an isolated tribe of cannibals on the island of New Guinea. Their now
outlawed practice of eating the bodies of their dead relatives caused this same type of "spongiform
encephalopathy" nervous disorder in members of the tribe who ate the brains and spinal fluids
of their dead relatives.

When these same types of symptoms popped up in herds of cattle in England in the 1980s,
scientists figured out that the practice starting in the 1960s of feeding cow renderings (including
the brain and spinal column) back to cows was the likely cause of this deadly abnormality. They
immediately outlawed the practice in England. America followed suit in 1997. However, the incubation
period of this type of disease in humans is up to 40 years. Therefore, there is no way to determine
how many animals or humans may still be latent carriers of the disease. When you add the fact
"that nearly a third of the country’s 10,000 feed plants were not inspected" last year,
you have to rely on the honesty of a set of people that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad characterized
as "eating like a beast".

For further study please read these articles in the "News" section of www.MuhammadFarms.com
: 1. "Countries Ban American Beef After First Mad Cow Case", 2. "Inspections for Mad
Cow Lag Those Done Abroad", 3. "Expert Warned That Mad Cow Was Imminent", 4.
"WHO Issues Mad Cow/CJD World Control Guidelines", 5. "Stringent Steps Taken by U.S.
on Cow Illness" and 6."Cannibalism holds warning of mad cow".

Bon appetite and Peace, Doc 

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

The above diagram represents a concept to describe the relationship between Black people and the
white system or what I call “Dumb Poker”. It is a variant of whites basic game called
“Divide and Conquer”, but this time they act like they are divided so that you will think
that you had a chance at winning. “Dumb Poker” is also similar to the “Good Cop/Bad
Cop” game played by the police department and the two party system of government (Democrats and
Republicans). “Dumb Poker” encompasses a number of relationships, such as the Black
farmers lawsuit or any court proceedings, Blacks doing business with white folk, Blacks going to
school with white folk, Blacks dealings with the US government and possibly many more examples.

The basic structure of this game called “Dumb Poker” is that white folk first
“Discriminate” to control the number of participants in the game (divide). Blacks outnumber whites
throughout the world, but whites make sure that they engage only a minority of that majority or they
simply will not participate. Next “They Cheat” and collude behind the scenes to
“conquer” the unsuspecting victim (player “D”). As the game proceeds it may seem like player
“A” won and players “B”, “C” and “D” loss, but behind the
scenes player “A” shares his take with players “B” and “C”. Player
“D” walks away broke, confused and with diminished self-confidence.

Let us see how this game plays out with the black farmers lawsuit against the USDA filed in 1999.
First of all the courts refused to hear a number of previous attempts at bringing the USDA to task.
This is the “Discrimination” phase of the game. They limit who and how many can even get
into the “game” and they don’t allow the rest to see what is going on in the
“playing field” (court).

Next the farmers did not find out until too late that player “A” (the lawyers for the
USDA), player “B” (the judge) and “C” (their own lawyers) worked closely behind
the scenes to produce an out of court settlement which insured that 40% of the farmers would lose.
Settling out of court also prevented the black farmers from telling their stories to a jury of their
peers which was another form of “Discrimination”.

The farmers also did not know that there was a law produced in 1996, a year after the Million Man
March, that changed how rewards from Civil Rights law suits would be handled by the IRS. As of 1996
the lawyer’s fees in non-personal injury civil rights cases would not be tax deductible. This
means that the plaintiff would have to pay taxes on the money that he had to pay the lawyers instead
of those expenses being deducted before figuring tax liabilities as is done in every other case. So
it is possible, and it has happened, that some “winners” in civil rights lawsuits have had
an IRS tax liability greater than the residuals that they received from “winning” the
lawsuit (“Reparations” beware).

This same scenario with the black farmers is played out everyday in courts across America where
black defendants are prosecuted by player “A”, sold out by their own lawyers (player
“C”) and the judge (player “B”) sits up their in his black robe condoning the
miscarriage of justice.

To demonstrate how this “Dumb Poker” game works in business I will describe an actual
set up at a farmers’ market in Georgia. This market is set up as an “auction market”.
There are about six major buyers that bid against each load of produce that the farmers bring in.
What has happened to Black farmers including myself is that the competing bidders allow one of them
to get all of the load dirt cheap, then they go back to their warehouses and split the load.

In the educational arena, I witnessed while I was a graduate student at Michigan State,
undergraduate black students consistently did poorly on tests. What I found out was that white
students who were members of sororities or fraternities would have a file on each teacher, including
past tests. The white students would study these past tests knowing that the teachers would take
questions from previous tests, mix them up a little bit and produce a new test with many of these
same questions. So the white students studied the tests while the black students studied the book.

The US government is divided into the legislative, judicial and executive branches supposedly to
act as a check and balance of powers. But when Blacks face this bureaucracy it becomes a question of
hide and seek justice, or rights hidden in a “shell game.” Here is another example of
“Dumb Poker” being played in the black farmers’ fight against the USDA.

President Reagan (the executive branch) in 1982 used his executive powers to cut funds for the
Civil Rights division of the USDA that was mandated by congress (the legislative branch). Farmers
wanted to sue the USDA for discrimination or negligence in how discrimination cases were handled.
However, the USDA claimed that they did not have adequate funding to process the discrimination
claims although the farmers had legitimate complaints. The federal courts (judicial branch) later refused
to bring Reagan to trial because of executive privilege. So there!!!

“Dumb Poker” has been played over and over again in different arenas
with the same results, Blacks losing and white folks getting richer. I would suspect that this same
game will be brought forward as Blacks’ call for “Reparations”. Now let’s see, who are
the players, “A”, “B” and “C”? And who is “D” this time, Blacks,
African-Americans or direct descendants of slaves?

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

On January 20, 2003 Gary Grant, President of the Black Farmers and Agriculturists Association,
and myself were invited by the Pittsburgh, Pa chapter of the Black Radical Congress to speak at a
Martin Luther King celebration event on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. As a part of the
presentations a brother read a letter by a well known activist who could not be there in person but
wanted his thoughts conveyed to the Black farmers. The letter was so profound on different levels
that we thought it news worthy to present part of it in The Farmer Newsletter.

I quote: "The Black farmers in America are in trouble. Decades of discriminatory treatment
at the hands of the local and regional offices of the USDA, empty promises by politicians and
courts, and repeated betrayals by those who are sworn to ‘protect’ their interests has left them
holding the bag—and the bag is virtually empty."

After giving a very concise historical analysis of the problem including quotations from myself,
Gary Grant, and former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, the writer does not just stop with
identifying the problem but moves towards developing a strategy for the future by writing:

"As ghettoes continue to swell throughout America’s urban areas, the potential of Black
farms cannot be underestimated as an important, natural resource that can positively impact on the
daily lives and well-being of millions.

Often, those in the inner city must pay the most money for the least fresh, and least nutritious,
of life-giving foods. An intelligent program of economic assessment and regional planning, which
routes the produce from those farms to the neighborhoods where the goods may be best utilized, can
heal two breaches—urban malnutrition and economic self-sustenance—at the same time.

To solve the Black farmer problem may mean, ultimately, to solve our own."

We hope to fulfill this brother’s desire for an "intelligent program of economic
assessment and regional planning", at our "5^th Annual Black Land Loss
Summit." The full agenda can be viewed at http://www.MuhammadFarms.com/land_loss_summit.htm.
However, much of our agenda will deal with hooking up the players in the economic system that can
make our theme of "Controlling our destiny from the land to the man" a working plan and
not just "a dream."

We know that if the writer of this letter could make our event, he would not formulate any
excuses. However, the brother who wrote this profound letter has been in jail on death row since
1995. He is a political prisoner by the name of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

After this letter was read to the audience, I had to draw their attention to the irony of it all.
Here we have a well referenced document with viable solutions from a brother whose body is locked
behind bars. However, his mind is not in chains and he uses the Internet to keep up with what is
going on in our backyards, while we play at being asleep. If this brother can find out what is going
on from behind bars, then we can not accept the excuse of ignorance as to why we do not move on what
we already know.

It is my opinion that we do not act on what we know because we want to play in "massa’s"
filthy play pen a little while longer. We are playing with sure death. Just recently I read and
heard in the major news media that the lawsuit against McDonalds was thrown out of court by the
judge. The judge said that since it is a "well known" fact that there are major negative
side effects from eating fast-foods all the time, anyone who does so is knowingly putting himself at
risk and therefore does not deserve to sue.

This court ruling also reminds me of the "2002 Homeland Security Bill" which takes
effect today, January 24th, and basically says that if you voluntarily take vaccines and you have
been warned about possible negative side effects, you can not sue the pharmaceutical companies if
you get sick or die. In other words, suicide by lethal injection and lethal consumption is legal.
So, please "give us your fast-food money" before it kills you (smile).

But going back to Mumia, will we have to lock up the majority of Black people to slow them down
enough and take them away from the TV long enough for them to seek the type of knowledge that could
make their lives better? Will you be coming to the Black Land Loss Summit or will you stay locked up
under mental "house arrest"?

Martin Luther King had a dream, but after reading many of his other speeches, I can truthfully
say that he, unlike many of us, was not ASLEEP.

Visit us at www.MuhammadFarms.com and stay awake, please!

Peace, Doc

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

This past weekend I attended a participatory workshop held in Plains, GA called "Your Town:
Designing It’s Future." This workshop brought in rural development experts and local
community activists to interact and learn more about how to move rural communities towards common
goals. Along with the volumes of materials provided by professionals, we were privileged to hear
first hand stories of the histories of small Georgia communities like Archery, Plains, Monticello
and Pebble Hills.

Deacon Ravens of the St. Mark AME Church stated that he was proud of the independent spirit and
drive for excellence that was generated by Bishop William Decker Johnson on the people of Archery,
Ga., a very small rural community about 2 miles from Plains which was the birthplace of former
President Jimmy Carter. Mr. Ravens compared the life of those who lived on nearby plantations to his
own by referencing a specific incident in his teenage life in Archery.

Mr. Ravens had three brothers, one of which was to be married on a Saturday. While preparing to
go to the wedding, he and his brother’s boss at the saw mill came by. Their boss said, "I,
god, if y’all can’t come to work today, then you need to come and get your pay." Mr. Raven
said that he and his brother ran down to the mill and were there before their boss got back to get
their money and proceed to the wedding. Mr. Raven, a retired High School principal, said that
because they did not live on the plantation and their father owned land, they did not have to bow
down to such threats.

It seems that over time, white people have transformed this "I, god.." saying into the
softer, "By, god.." phrase. Indeed the plantation owner saw himself as "god"
over those who lived and worked out there. And until a countervailing power intervened to transform
his omnipotent view of himself in relation to his Black workers, he stayed "god".

This view of plantation life in the 1930’s and 40’s by Mr. Ravens is in stark opposition to
the image presented by another of the speakers at the "Your Town" conference. Mr. James
Hadley, a retired military man, introduced his newly released book, "African-American Life on
the Southern Hunting Plantation." Mr. Hadley’s father worked on such a plantation, Pebble
Hill, right outside of Thomasville, Georgia, for 53 years.

Mr. Hadley interviewed many people who had worked on these plantations who gave a more positive
view of plantation life such as:

"In retrospect, I feel that many of the surrounding plantations were blessings for rural
blacks that had limited outlets for gainful employment in South Georgia during the early 20’s. The
plantation offered work and a reasonable degree of security for those who sought a safe haven where
they could support their families."

"During the Depression, I found that the families on the plantation were better off because
the plantation owners provided them with…food, clothing, and other things that they could help
them along and gave a break to those that were farming out there."

Indeed the plantation owner took care of a lot of the responsibilities for his workers and their
children that the individual Black farmer or city worker had to do for themselves. This
"burden" became more acute during economic hard times such as the Great Depression. It was
during this time that Bishop Johnson Home Industrial College closed down and many small farm owners
left their farms to seek government assisted jobs.

In a book entitled "One Third of a Nation" Lorena Hickok made extensive
"confidential" reports to her boss, Mr. Harry Hopkins, as she traveled over thirty-two
states between 1932 and 1935 investigating the day-to-day toll the depression was exacting on
individual citizens. In one letter to Mr. Hopkins, head of FDR’s Federal Emergency Relief
Administration, Ms. Hickok comments on the surprising acceptance of Southern white farmers to the
higher wages to "Negroes" provided by the Civil Works Administration (CWA):

"Generally, the farmers seemed to be most enthusiastic about CWA. They felt that it had
helped them, by reducing the number of tenants and laborers they would otherwise have had to
support. There have been many cases, relief people tell me, of farmers asking that some of their men
be put on CWA."

So the CWA and other government programs by offering higher wages attracted both the plantation
worker and the small independent Black farmers to leave the countryside seeking a better life in the
larger cities. However, for the rural communities left behind, life still revolved around those
large landowners who held prominent positions both in the small towns and in the county. These large
white farmers, landowners and their relatives became the city councilmen, mayors, judges and county
commissioners in these rural districts. These rural districts in turn grew or did not grow based on
the development philosophies of these "prominent" families. It was quite hard for the
"little" people to vote against their employers and benefactors.

At the "Your Town" workshop the mayor, a Black city council woman and former city
councilman reported on some of the reasons for their success in breaking the downward trend of the
town of Monticello, GA, population 2,400. The former city council man said that they were able to
break with tradition because the new, more progressive city council had three new members that were
not from Monticello. "Since we had just arrived here over the last several years, we did not
know who to be afraid of," he said.

This fear can be traced back to both the plantation life of the modern era and stories about the
"Knight Riders" and KKK which sprang up during the Reconstruction years. In the South
there are extreme differences in the perception of that history and those institutions developed
during that period. These differences in perception lay at the root of how Blacks and whites in the
rural South are able to or not able to work together for community improvements. For instance in
preparing myself for the "Your Town" workshop, I decided to read up on the history of
Terrell County where I operate Muhammad Farms. Here is an excerpt from a 1970 book entitled,
"The History of Terrell County."

"The Ku Klux Klan was a law and order league of mounted night cavalry men, called into
action by the intolerant condition of a reign of terror under the rule in the South at the close of
the War between the States.

During the Reconstruction Days in the South it became an absolute necessity to have an
organization, such as the Ku Klux Klan to protect Southern firesides. Our own Confederate soldiers
organized it. When they returned home after the surrender, their fortunes gone, and homes destroyed,
they found the "Carpet-baggers" and scalawags here. They were forced to keep the freed
Negro in subjection until he could be freed from the tendency and influences of the scalawags and
carpet-baggers.

From the beginning, there was only the thought of social pleasure and recreation in this order.
But they discovered that their queer costumes, and their weird and mysterious doings affected the
minds of the Negroes, and, so the whites turned their efforts into a means of defense, as was needed
by the South at this time. It seemed as if the very foundation of Southern civilization was
threatened. If white or black in any community of the county was giving trouble they found a K K K
note on the door. This meant leave the county at once."

Many left and never came back and differences of opinion on that reality still effects voting,
decision making, funding and the feeling of community in these rural areas today. Some stayed and
found safety under the wings of benevolent plantation owners. Some dared to continue farming as
independent land owners, albeit on smaller and less fertile strips of land. They remained to fight
these same "benevolent" plantation owners now writing the rules on the County commissions
and USDA County committees. The prominent whites now did not only own the best tracts of land, but
were in charge of distributing the benefits of a forced taxation to the "good old boys".
They were "benevolent" to the Blacks on their plantations while still supporting the
"terrorists" who frightened the "free" Blacks out of their land, businesses and
wits.

These same "Robbing Hoods" have become more sophisticated in their corruption and can
now make wrong seem right, as with the Pigford vs. Glickman Class action lawsuit. The Black farmers
by settling out of court found out the hard way, that lawyers serve the highest bidders, white
sheets can be dyed to look like black robes, "justice" is only blind to itself, the
helpless are left helpless and the public is left without a clue wondering, "well, what do they
want now?"

We hope that you get to see Mr. Tom Burrell on "BET Tonight" this Tuesday, January 22nd
at 11:30 p.m., as he discusses the plight and fight of Black farmers and land owners.

***News Flash: Black
Farmer to appear on "BET Tonight"