U.S. approves settlement for black farmers: where’s the check?

Black farmers rallied in Washington D.C. last week to receive payment from USDA discrimination settlement. (Source: Washington State House Republicans)

President Obama kept his words when he said, he would bring "long-ignored claims of African-American farmers to a rightful conclusion." His administration reached a $1.25 billion historic settlement in April regarding a lawsuit claiming decades of brutal mistreated and racial discrimination against African-American farmers by a United States government agency – the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The federal government promised in April to pay the money by the end of March to thousands of black farmers who had filed longstanding case of racial discrimination against the U.S. Agriculture Department. This settlement will be the second round of damages from a suit the government first settled in 1999. The government paid out more than $1 billion to 16,000 black farmers, however, thousands more farmers were left out of the first round of payments because they missed filing deadlines. The Black Farmer Association is saying that although the USDA settled a lawsuit out of court with black plaintiffs in 1999, most of them had not heard about the legal action until after the filing deadline. About 80,000 black farmers who filed late are seeking restitution.

From every indication, it appears that Congress is intentionally dragging its feet to avoid issuing a check. According to John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, "I want to know who is behind this hold-up. I want a concrete answer," he also added “the black farmers are not willing to engage in an indefinite waiting game." Boyd said he was disappointed the administration had not secured the money from Congress and said "we need more of a commitment" from President Obama to back up the agreement with cash. "We want the administration to do what they said they were going to do," Boyd said. "This has been a very, very long, drawn-out battle. There's been a lot of empty promises made to the black farmers."

Boyd said the organization has tried and failed "numerous times" to tack the $1.15 billion onto existing bills in Congress, despite support from President Barack Obama, who has added the expense to the budget. With growing support from Democratic leadership and the White House, Boyd said he expected restitution to be given to black farmers before the end of 2010.