by MATTHEW CARDINALE
“When the Pigford case was brought about, it was because black farmers were losing about 1,000 acres of farmland a day,” Gary Grant, president of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association in North Carolina, told IPS. “The majority of the folks went out of business because of the discriminatory and racist actions of the agents of the USDA.”
The USDA engaged in “not giving access to loans, not giving access to programmes, not giving access to emergency loans, not giving loans in the full amount needed, slowing the process.”
“The stories never got told – USDA agent’s offices with nooses hanging on the wall, neckties with the Confederate flag on it, all kinds of subtleties of ‘boy, don’t forget where you are’,” Grant said. “Not one of them has been fired, not one of them has been demoted.”
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