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Vilsack Must Keep Black Farmers on their Land
By Cynthia McKinney
July 22
Sherrod was fired after her superior, USDA Deputy Under Secretary Cheryl
Cook asked Sherrod to pull over on her drive from south Georgia to
Athens, Georgia and quit her job after a speech made by Sherrod to the
Coffee County NAACP was aired on a Douglas County TV cable access
channel and then posted on the internet by Andrew Breitbart, a known
conservative, activist blogger.
Sherrod, a veteran advocate for Black Farmers, who the USDA admits have
been discriminated against, was fired because the White House feared
that Glen Beck was going to discuss her alleged racist remarks on his TV
show that night. It turns out, however, that the tape of Sherrod's
remarks had been badly doctored and the doctored version had been posted
on the internet. Glen Beck and the entire Fox News operation were
reacting to the doctored internet posting. Ms. Sherrod was fired
without having an opportunity to explain her side of the story and
before the White House and Secretary Vilsack had even bothered to look
at her entire speech. "The White House and Secretary Vilsack threw
Shirley Sherrod under the bus before they had the facts," said Cynthia
McKinney, who knows Sherrod and has spoken often at the Coffee County
NAACP.
Unfortunately however, Secretary Vilsack has also thrown Black Farmers
under the bus. To date, despite abundant headlines to the contrary,
Black Farmers, including the named plaintiffs in Pigford v. Glickman
(1997), Lucious Abrams and Cecil Brewington have not even had a
meeting with USDA, to settle their discrimination claim. Others who did
receive settlements were then harassed by the Internal Revenue Service
and had their bank accounts frozen and their Social Security payments
offset by any government payments, including stimulus payments. "The
actual so-called settlement of the lawsuit was worse than the
discrimination that the USDA has admitted to and discrimination is
continuing at this very hour," said Pigford plaintiff Black
Farmer Eddie Slaughter.
"The President is meeting with everyone except those who brought forward
the lawsuit and those who suffered discrimination and the violation of
their Constitutional rights," said Lucious Abrams. Eddie Slaughter and
Lucious Abrams met with Secretary Vilsack and apprised him of the
current situation, but the Secretary to date has failed to act.
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The
Shirley Sherrod episode shows how quickly legitimate Black interests are
thrown under the bus due to fear on the one hand and racial incitement for
political purposes on the other hand. "President Barack Obama should meet
with Black Farmers who are leading the lawsuit," said McKinney, who has been
active for years on the Black Farmer issue. Despite winning the lawsuit,
plaintiffs in Pigford have not been made whole and therefore have not
received justice. Over one decade later, lead plaintiffs on the lawsuit
have not even had a hearing on the merits on their claim of discrimination,
now admitted by the USDA. Claimants got paid, but actual farmers did not.
The result is that over one million black-owned farm acres are at risk of
being lost due to acceleration of collection of debt, foreclosure,
bankruptcy, and USDA and USDOJ deliberate delay resulting in delinquent
notes for Black Farmers.
Claimants, who are not necessarily farmers, have been paid out of the
judgment fund. Meanwhile, class counsel (Alexander Pires), the adjudicators
(Poorman Douglas), the arbitrator (Michael Lewis), the DOJ (USDA is paying
DOJ), the facilitator (JAM in Dispute), the monitor (Randy Ross) were all
paid over $300 million dollars of taxpayer money, yet actual Black Farmers
are yet to be made whole. Under Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, USDA is
still engaged in a racket that will result in the theft of black-owned
land, said McKinney.
Both the White House and Secretary Vilsack have issued public apologies to
Sherrod.
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