Black Farmers Rally In Washington For Delayed Settlement Payments

February 17th, 2010

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

In 1997 the Pigford v. Glickman class action lawsuit was filed against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), alleging racial discrimination in providing farm loans to African Americans from 1983 and 1997. The lawsuit originally ended with a 1999 settlement in which the U.S. government agreed to pay Black farmers $50,000 each if they had attempted to get USDA loans during the prescribed time period. Approximately 1 Billion dollars has been paid out in the settlement.

But many black farmers who would have qualified for the settlement did not complete filing on time or their applications were regjected, and missed out on recieving funds, unitl the suit was opened back up in 2008 Farm Bill legislation. The money has been allocated; but congress has neglected to write the disbursment of the funds into the budget to make distribution of the settlement money law.


Tens of thousands of Black Farmers have not received their money under a suit where the USDA admitted discrimination.

On Monday Black Farmers rallied in Washington, and else where in the United States for President’s day.

NPR has an audio story about it:

From NPR:

“In 1999, the USDA settled a class-action lawsuit in which they admitted to decades of discrimination against black farmers. Some 15,000 of those farmers managed to navigate the legal paperwork for an average settlement of $50,000. Many others, like Switzer, were rejected because they didn’t have the right documentation or didn’t hear about the settlement and applied late. They’re still waiting to be paid.”

My previous post on the issue from July 2008



posted in News & Events, Racial Injustice, Socio-Economic | | | View blog reactions |


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About The Blog

  • D. Yobachi Boswell

  • Yobachi Boswell is creator and publisher of BlackPerspecitve.net. I’m a writer, activist and political watcher based in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve also been know to do some spoken word and MCing in my day.

    I created this site to give new voice to socio-political issues that are in need of thoughtful consideration and redress.

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