Southern Black Farmers: Targets of USDA Racism
40 Acres and a Mule, Denied
By Damien Jackson, AlterNet
Posted on November 17, 2004
http://www.alternet.org/story/20511/All the Johnson brothers ever wanted to do was farm. After all, for Leon, Milton and Shade Johnson, it was their birthright. Born on a 44-acre plot in the thriving African American farm community of 1950s Tillery, N.C., the hard-working threesome spent endless days harvesting corn and peanuts alongside their mother and uncle in this cotton-clad northeastern corner of the state. By the early 1970s, Leon – the oldest of the three and the first to have farming aspirations of his own – had accumulated an adjacent 74 acres of land while renting out another 1,200, making him one of the most prominent black landowners in Halifax County. Upon their mother's death in 1974, Milton and Shade went to work for their older brother.
Though he now controlled large amounts of land, one thing Leon could not control was nature. Like many southern farmers, the Johnson brothers were plagued by the relentless drought and low crop yields of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1978, Leon began borrowing money from the Farm Services Agency (FSA) – a local arm of the US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) – for disaster assistance, operations and equipment.
It was the worst move he ever made.
...
Leonard Cooper, a former USDA county agriculture director, recently echoed Davis's contention that, ultimately, its all about the land. "If you've got land, you've got wealth," says Cooper, a longtime farmer. "They (USDA) want to keep black farmers from thriving and owning land. This is their goal."
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ofgu/black111804.cfm