Land containing valuable mineral rights—coal, oil, gypsum, and timber has been snatched right out of the hands of those who own or inherited it. Many of the cases of land piracy involve black con artists who conspire along with their white counterparts to steal.
In addition to simply walking in and taking over the land and running its black owners off, land pirates often pay an heir with drug or alcohol problems, to “sell” their portion of heirs’ property, then the new “owner” goes to court and forces a partition sale. The result is usually that the “heirs” take home a few dollars and the new “owner” takes possession of valuable land, usually containing rich soil, timber, oil, coal or other rights.
The land thieves are taking advantage of several long-standing conditions: institutional racism within the farm loan industry, collusion among banks, auction houses and county officials and lack of knowledge of the legal process on part of the theft victims.
The institutional racism remains strong, despite 40 years of Affirmative Action, Civil Rights and legal challenges. Custom still rules and in many parts of the nation, the custom is: “Blacks have no rights that a white man is bound to respect.”
We do not deny the horrible circumstances that many white family farmers are enduring. Many have lost their land and heritage to the same thieving land pirates who have been stealing black land, but, there remains a difference: racism against the blacks is often perpetrated by the same white farmers, and their associates, who complain about land theft and illegal practices at local Farm Service Administration offices.
Lawyers hired by black land theft victims have “disappeared”—along with legal documents. One Kentucky farmer says associates of the people who were after his land bought out his former law firm.
A Texas case of racism against one black farm family was so strong, that two different attorneys hired by the United States Department of Agriculture advised the USDA to settle a lawsuit with a black farm family for $1.4 million. This is the case where the attorney “went on a hunting trip”, along with the paperwork for the case, in 1993 and hasn’t been seen since. ((Dr. Ridgely Muhammed, “Too Little, Too Late”, 2002)
The black farmwoman in the case has since had 2 heart attacks—a familiar occurrence in these cases. Usually, the stress is so much that by the time a legal settlement comes around, if it ever does, the principals are usually dead or incapacitated because of the stress.
The situation is, indeed critical. Gary Grant, a North Carolina farm activist, says 92% of all black farm families in the state have lost their land in the past 20 years. Beginning in 1980, black farmers around the nation were driven out of business at an unprecedented rate.
And, while these farmers and others like them have not been standing still insofar as their legal rights are concerned, they still face an uphill battle despite the so-called “Black Farmer Settlement.” Not to mention the backlash from white farmers who have also been abused by the system.
As far as those who want to know why blacks “aren’t doing something”, much of what is going on is happening out of the public eye, the “Black Farm Settlement” notwithstanding.
In the case of Mrs. Laverne Williams of Texas, who later suffered a series of heart attacks over farm loan-related health issues, the then-Chairman of the House Agricultural Committee, Charlie Stanhorn, reportedly told Dan Glickman, Secretary of Agriculture, that “If you settle this case with them niggers down there, I’m going to have problems with the white boys down there.” (Dr. Ridgely Muhammed, “Too Little, Too Late”, 2002)
That Settlement gave the impression that a bunch of black farmers and people who claimed to be farmers got rich, courtesy of the America taxpayer, when the opposite is true. Many black farmers were denied the settlement, and many of those who received the $50,000 deal were either out of farming, or had never themselves farmed.
To add insult to injury: those who received the ‘settlement’ had to pay taxes on the funds, funds which were vitally important to their remaining competitive in the farm business. That is even though the money itself was not enough to buy farm equipment, or actually pay for the cumulative affect of years of delays in loans, operating capital and access to farm programs.
Look at it this way: if a black farmer began operating in 1981, and consistently was refused loans, or had loans delayed pass planting time, then the $50,000 “settlement” was barely $2,000 a year for the years of abuse. Riches? Not hardly, when you consider the income that was lost in a quarter century due to corruption in the federal farm loan program.
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