Pigford Black Farmers Settlement Claims

ALBANY, Ga. — In April of 1999, Judge Paul L. Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia approved a settlement agreement and consent decree in Pigford v. Glickman, a class action discrimination suit between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and black farmers.

The suit claimed that the agency had discriminated against black farmers on the basis of race and failed to investigate or properly respond to complaints from 1983 to 1997.

According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, “For many years, black farmers had complained that they were not receiving fair treatment when they applied to local county committees (which make the decisions) for farm loans or assistance. These farmers alleged that they were being denied USDA farm loans or forced to wait longer for loan approval than were non-minority farmers.”

“Many black farmers contended that they were facing foreclosure and financial ruin because the USDA denied them timely loans and debt restructuring.”

To date, more than $1 billion has been paid in $50,000 increments to more than 13,000 black farmers. The rub is, according to Buena Vista farmer Eddie Slaughter, many of the recipients of the settlement money are not farmers at all.

According to a July 2010 report by Kate Pickert in Time.com, the largest single settlement under Pigford went to Shirley and Charles Sherrod, who were awarded $150,000 each for pain and suffering and $13 million for the defunct New Communities Inc. farms.

“They are paying non-farmers while the bona fide black farmers are the ones who suffered the injustice,” said Slaughter, one of 157 farmers who brought the original suit in 1997, said. “The problem is there is so much money that the lawyers got involved, telling people how to fill out the claims and how to get around not having a farm ID number.

“I know people who have gotten this money and they are not farmers. A lot of black folks look at it as reparations. But this is supposed to be about saving black farms, not reparations. If they want reparations, let them file their own lawsuit.”

“Pigford turned into ‘The Trail of Tears’ for black farmers,” said Obie Beal, another of the original 157 farmers. “I haven’t gotten a dime from the settlement. In fact, I’ve spent over $25,000 of my own money trying to get justice.”

Of the five farmers The Herald spoke to Monday, Slaughter is the only one to have received a $50,000 check from the settlement. Slaughter said that his claim was later denied and he is currently paying back the government $238 a month from his Social Security check.

None of the five farmers said he received promised debt relief.

Joe Leonard Jr., USDA assistant secretary for civil rights, was out of the office and unavailable for comment Tuesday morning.

Alarmed by what they regarded as rampant fraud, Slaughter, Beal and four other black farmers met with Rep. Sanford Bishop Jr., D-Albany, in his Columbus office on Dec. 30, 2008, to voice their concerns.

“We asked him several times about this fraud,” Slaughter said in a video interview with Lee Stranahan. “We asked, why don’t you have them tell you how many of these people who are getting this money have an actual farm ID number and are actual farmers?

“(Bishop responded) ‘no, no, no, man, they’ll shut this thing down.”

Stranahan’s video is posted on TheHuffingtonPost.com and on Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com website, which also originated the video footage of a Coffee County NAACP meeting that resulted last year in the forced resignation of Shirley Sherrod as USDA Georgia Rural Development Director.

The initial clip on BigGovernment.com showed Sherrod admitting that she refused to give her full effort for a white farmer, but the full video of her speech showed the incident was a turning point for her on race relations and that she went back to the farmer and helped him with his problems. The farmer confirmed that Sherrod had been instrumental in keeping his family on its farm.

The USDA offered Sherrod another job with the agency after the full unedited video was made public, but she declined the offer.
Bishop last week confirmed meeting with the farmers, but when asked if he warned the farmers about shutting down the program, the congressman answered, “Absolutely not.”

But Willie Head of Pavo and Lucious Abrams of Waynesboro support Slaughter’s story of the meeting.

“I can verify he (Bishop) said every word of that,” Head said. “I was sitting right across the desk from him when he said it.”

Abrams, a county commissioner for Burke County, agreed.

“He (Bishop) absolutely said it,” Abrams said.”We all heard it. But I’ll tell you this, we were better off before we filed the lawsuit. (The USDA) has taken discrimination and turned it into persecution.”

Bishop did not address the farmers’ allegations, but instead issued a statement.

“The Pigford-Cobell legislation signed into law last month included unprecedented safeguards to address any issues of fraud or abuse of funds awarded to compensate victims of discrimination in the Pigford settlement,” Bishop said. “I am confident that the USDA will use these tools as Congress intended to ensure that taxpayer dollars awarded in the settlement only go to deserving individuals, and I will work with the USDA to ensure that the program meets this high standard.”

WASHINGTON — Democratic U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop called Internet insinuations that he was somehow involved in fraud surrounding last year’s settlement between the government and African-American farmers “one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.”

Videos featuring two Georgia farmers that are being circulated on the Web by conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart hint that Bishop, of Albany, may have known about possible fraud in last year’s so-called “Pigford” settlement between the government and black farmers who claimed that a Department of Agriculture farm loan program discriminated against them.

“I don’t know what they were imbibing,” Bishop said of the two farmers after watching the videos. “I’m just perplexed and shocked.”

Breitbart created a national stir last summer when he posted on the Web an edited video apparently showing Shirley Sherrod, a former Department of Agriculture official in Georgia, making racist remarks at a public meeting. Sherrod, an African-American, was quickly fired — but an embarrassed President Barack Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack later apologized and offered to rehire her after a review of the incident showed that Breitbart took her remarks out of context.

In the new Breitbart videos, South Georgia farmers Eddie Slaughter and Willie Head complain that Bishop, who also is an African-American, did nothing when they asked him to investigate the Pigford settlement.

Slaughter and Head say they and other farmers should have gotten a better deal, and that more settlement money went to lawyers and people who aren’t farmers than to them and other active farmers.

Under the settlement, the Obama administration agreed to pay $1.15 billion to farmers and families of deceased farmers. Both Slaughter and Head accepted the federal money but say they also should have received help with debts they incurred because they couldn’t get federal loans.

One of the videos posted by Breitbart’s biggovernment.com website comes with an introduction saying Bishop “wanted to keep allegations of the Pigford settlement quiet.” Another is titled “Rep. Sanford Bishop Knew About Pigford Fraud.”

In a posting on his website, Breitbart shows a video of Bishop walking away from a reporter without answering questions about the need for an investigation into the Pigford settlement. Breitbart writes that his site has found that the settlement is “wrought with fraud.”

Breitbart could not be reached for comment.

Reached by phone, Slaughter and Head told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they were definitely unhappy with Bishop, their congressman, for not doing more to help them get a better settlement.

“He never even tried,” Head said.

Slaughter said he asked Bishop to investigate the settlement, but that Bishop told him that doing so would “shut this thing down,” referring to the settlement already in the works.

But in separate interviews with the AJC, neither of the farmers said they thought Bishop was involved with any fraud.

“I’m not saying he did anything illegal,” Head said.

Bishop said he did everything he could for the two farmers and others in his district.

Jan 22, 2011 (Columbus Ledger-Enquirer – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) — The $1.15 billion settlement to black farmers in their suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture has provisions to identify fraud, U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop Jr. said Friday.

Bishop, who represents the 2nd Congressional District that includes parts of south Columbus and Fort Benning, was responding to an Internet video from Buena Vista, Ga., resident Eddie Slaughter claiming Bishop is aware of fraud in the payments. The legislation, known as the Pigford II settlement, was approved by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama on Dec. 8.

Slaughter claims he met Bishop in his Columbus office and expressed concerns about people who lacked farmer identification numbers or were never farmers seeking payments.

“Slaughter is a disgruntled farmer,” said Bishop, who has visited him in Buena Vista and tried to help Slaughter on issues. “He was approved in the first Pigford case. He did not get debt relief and he apparently got his loan renegotiated and didn’t pay it.” Bishop said he saw the video on Wednesday and recalls a conversation with Slaughter.

“I seem to recall that conversation, but there is nothing I have authority to do about it but have the oversight,” Bishop said.

Slaughter wasn’t available for comment late Friday.

“Legislation was passed and signed into law late last year,” Bishop said. “There were provisions put in there to address concerns of fraud.” Bishop, D-Albany, said he’s aware of people receiving funds from the settlement but they were heirs of farmers, the victims of past discrimination.

“They stood in the shoes of their deceased parents in collecting the money,” Bishop said. “Their parents were entitled to the settlement.” In the suit against the USDA, black farmers said they were denied loans between 1983 and 1997 or were forced to wait longer for loan approval than non-minority farmers. Thousands of black farmers were paid in the first settlement of the Pigford suit in 1999 but tens of thousands missed the deadline to apply. That prompted activists to seek more affected farmers hoping for another settlement.

Under the new bill, more than 75,000 black farmers are expected to share part of the settlement, with most receiving an average of $50,000.

Bishop describes Slaughter’s comments as totally irresponsible.

“The process was under the jurisdiction of the court,” he said. “An adjudicator was to determine who had legitimate claims. That was not my job. The bottom line is what he is saying I have no responsibility for.” Even during debate on the bill in Congress, Bishop said people made allegations that there could be fraud.

“Concerns of Slaughter were addressed in the bill,” Bishop said.

Nearly two weeks ago, I did two interviews with farmers in Georgia who both made a serious accusation against Congressman Sanford Bishop related to the Pigford v. Glickman black farmers settlement — that when they brought up excessive lawyer fees and allegations of fraud, the congressman told them that an investigation of those issues might “shut down” the settlement.

Here are the clips I posted with farmers Eddie Slaughter and Willie Head.

Within a couple of days, Congressman Bishop responded to three different newspapers. His story was different each time.

* Rep. Bishop told the Albany Herald that he was aware of the fraud but it wasn’t his job to police it. This admission is significant because USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack has claimed that there was almost no fraud in Pigford.
* When speaking to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Rep. Bishop was suddenly stunned and perplexed and suggested that the farmers had been drinking.
* Most recently, Rep. Bishop told the Columbus Ledger-Inquirer him that he remembered the meeting, repeated that he wasn’t responsible for monitoring fraud, suggested that there were antifraud provisions in the second Pigford bill and again insulted the farmers calling them disgruntled and irresponsible.

In order to clear up some of the issues raised by Congressman Bishop and these newspapers, tonight I recorded a phone interview with Willie Head.

It’s about 11 minutes long and is presented to you with absolutely no editing.