Lettie Jeffery of Detroit, left, helps Rhoda Jeffery-Brewer, a farmer from Clarksdale, Miss., file her claim at the Doubletree Fort Shelby. African American farmers won a $1.2 billion settlement in a decades-long discrimination case., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Black farmers apply for USDA settlement
Dec. 2, 2011
By Zlati Meyer
Detroit Free Press Business Writer
Rhoda Jeffery-Brewer splits her time between Detroit and the farm her family has owned in Clarksdale, Miss., for four generations. But on Thursday morning, the 67-year-old was 800-plus miles away from those 360 acres of cotton to file a claim of racial discrimination against the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the Doubletree Fort Shelby hotel in Detroit.
The federal government reached a $1.25-billion settlement with African-American farmers stemming from tens of thousands of allegations that U.S. farm officials withheld farm loans and other assistance from 1981-96.
Now, according to a U.S. District Court, the approximately 58,000 farmers and their descendants who missed the initial deadline have until May to submit their paperwork. Many are attending information sessions like the one in Detroit.
"I never dreamed of this," Jeffery-Brewer said, recalling how she watched a USDA employee in Mississippi throw her request in the trash years ago. "I have memories of me applying and not getting loans. ... Adjacent to me was a white farmer and they'd get" loans.
Claimants are eligible for up to $250,000, depending on what records they have, according to Gregorio Francis, one of the lead attorneys, who spoke with Thursday's attendees. In the 1980s and '90s, some were told there were no funds or applications available, while others were denied loans.
"There is a sense of anger for some many. This was the bane of their existence. This was a way of life for them. A sense of pride. Not being able to compete with neighbors," Francis said. "For many, there is a great sense of loss -- land lost, livelihood lost. They were forced out of the (area) where they'd built their family for generations."
The settlement is referred to as Pigford, the surname of the plaintiff whose case dates back to 1997. Other similar cases were consolidated into it.
The 2008 Farm Bill set aside $100 million for the settlement that 25,700 farmers applied for; last December, President Barack Obama added another $1.15 billion to the pot.
Two and half years earlier, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called for "a new era of civil rights" for the USDA in a memo and instituted a number of initiatives, including creating a Program Complaints Task Force to review more than 11,000 cases, revamping how the USDA provides services and improving outreach efforts to underserved communities,
Detroiter John Vernor, whose family grew corn, tobacco and cotton on 60-100 acres in Hemingway, S.C., wasn't so convinced that he'd ever see the money he feels is due to him.
"I was denied because of the color of my skin," the retired factory worker said. "Sometimes, it takes a lifetime for results. ... They're trying to (repair) something that happened 25 years ago. I think about who really, really needed it and they're gone. It's just a small glaze, a small fix."
Contact Zlati Meyer: 313-223-4439 or zmeyer@freepress.com
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