More than a significant legal achievement -- a purchase on a new season for justice
from Gloria J. Browne-Marshall at Black Star News: http://blackstarnews.com/news/135/ARTICLE/7983/2012-02-23.html
Black Farmers Are Endurance Champions; Surviving Massacres, Broken Promises
Black farmers have a gallant and painful history
____ The justice system can be a crushingly slow machine shattering dreams of fairness and depleting optimism. Endurance is the key. Black farmers know of endurance. They recently received a $1.25 billion legal settlement. It is the largest settlement in civil rights history. Yet, their achievement was nearly overshadowed by the length of time needed to acquire this $1.25 billion settlement.
Millions of urban sophisticates have their roots in the farm. Cities provided opportunities. But, what of those who remained on the farm? Black-American farmers have been embattled for 150 years. Following the bravery demonstrated by Black soldiers, General Sherman promised them 40 acres of land and a mule to plow it. After President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination this promise was renounced. Black farmers, comprised of freemen and the formerly enslaved, worked the land despite schemes to defraud them and unfair laws which beset their every endeavor. Flood waters, droughts, and fluctuating crop prices made the back-breaking work of farm life uncertain, at best. Yet, they persevered . . . more
Not every Black farmer filed a claim in time to become a part of that $100 million settlement. In 2008, President Barack Obama signed the Farm Bill allowing thousands of late filers inclusion in the settlement. However, $100 million could not cover the extensive damage to Black farmers by the DOA. Agri-business is a multi-billion dollar global industry. Therefore, on February 18, 2010, at the request of the DOA, Congress allotted an additional settlement amount of $1.15 billion in the case now known as In re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation bringing the financial settlement to $1.25 billion, in total.
As a fifth generation Midwesterner and the grand-daughter of Kansas farmers, the Pigford case represents more than a significant legal achievement. To work the land is to sustain life. Whether owners of a small family farm or president of a conglomerate Black farmers lost a way of life due to racism. Millions of acres of land were lost. However, an endurance gained from working the land kept Black farmers steadfast. Perseverance gained from awaiting each new season allowed them to await a season for justice. $1.25 billion cannot bring back a way of life. However, it can certainly purchase the land needed to begin anew. The deadline for submission is May 11, 2012.
read article: http://blackstarnews.com/news/135/ARTICLE/7983/2012-02-23.html
President Obama signs off on $1.25 billion settlement
Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, an associate professor of Constitutional Law at John Jay College in New York City, is the director/founder of The Law and Policy Group, Inc. and author of “Race, Law, and American Society: 1607 to Present.”
= new reply since forum marked as read
My family farmed and still farms. Original farm is in Talladega Alabama and then branched out to Georgia and Mississippi during the Great Depression. We still thrive from that labor of love today.
For those smaller family farms that have held on all of these years - it warms my heart to see them get what is due to them. We won't be applying for this (the Land Trust) but I'm glad it's there for those who truly need the restitution. 
