News Coverage
800 Black Farmers File New Lawsuit
Published June 5, 2008
WASHINGTON — More than 800 black farmers from across the South, primarily Mississippi and Alabama, have filed a discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture two weeks after Congress reopened a 1999 settlement over past discrimination.
The farmers wasted little time in taking advantage of a provision in the recently enacted farm bill that allows fresh claims from those who were denied damages after missing earlier deadlines from a 1999 settlement over past discrimination.
Some 75,000 people could fall into that group. If their suits are successful, the case could cost the government several billion dollars on top of the $980 million in damages already paid under the original settlement.
The latest lawsuit could allow claims to be south by some 19,000 people from Mississippi alone who were denied previously, said John Boyd, who heads the Virginia-based National Black Farmers Association.
Kingston farmer Demestra Winding is one of the plaintiffs. He is encouraged farmers unable to bring claims before the USDA in the previous suit will have their voices heard.
"There has been some light shed on things," says Winding, who grows corn and tends to cattle on his farm. "I feel like it's a step in moving forward."
He said the USDA denied a loan that would have helped him begin farming on land near Liberty. White farmers, he said, got the loans.
More than 63,000 black farmers who applied late for the settlement were rejected by a federal court, according to the Environmental Working Group, a Washington research group. The original deadline to file a claim was Sept. 15, 2000.
The new lawsuit, organized by the black farmers association, was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington.
Boyd, a black farmer who founded the group, said he expects another 5,000 to join the lawsuit soon. He said he's ready to continue a legal fight that began 11 years ago with the original litigation.
In 2000, many farmers weren't notified in time to make a claim before the deadline, and others had difficulty locating documents to prove their cases, said Robert Zabawa, a professor at Tuskegee University's agriculture college, who tried to help local farmers in 2000.
The Environmental Working Group found a growing gap between USDA payments received by black farmers compared with all other farmers. In 1995, black farmers averaged $1,841 in federal payments compared with $4,066 for all other farmers. In 2005, black farmers received $4,291 compared with $13,846 for other farmers.
Linda Winding Barnes said she went into a USDA office in 1997 seeking drought assistance for her dad's farm in Liberty, Miss., where they raised hogs, cotton and corn.
"They told me I had the wrong place," she said. "That's all the effort they gave to me."
Barnes filed late for the original settlement because she heard about it after the deadline and plans to reapply.
USDA spokesman Keith Williams didn't know if the Environmental Working Group's numbers are accurate.
Most farm benefits are entitlements, he said, meaning if the price of cotton or corn falls below a certain price, all farmers regardless of race are eligible to receive payments. He said he couldn't explain the discrepancy in benefits between white and black farmers reported by Environmental Working Group.
It's not clear how many Mississippi farmers have been compensated. As of the start of 2005, $133.5 million was paid out to 2,660 Mississippi farmers. Under the agreement, known as the Pigford case, the USDA paid out about $752 million in claims to more than 15,000 black farmers.
Critics have charged that farmers had plenty of time to win claims and that reopening the case will reward questionable claimants who may not have suffered losses.
Boyd said farmers who feel they were improperly left out of the initial suit and have a legitimate case should provide documentation they filed claims with the USDA but had them rejected for being filed too late and/or proof they tried to contact a court-appointed administrator involved in the 1999 settlement.
Winding, the Kingston farmer, said he's willing to fight as long as he has to to gain compensation he says is owed to him. "I've been waiting this long," he said.
