{"id":40,"date":"2010-07-22T17:41:27","date_gmt":"2010-07-22T17:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/07\/sherrod-and-me-in-93.html"},"modified":"2010-07-22T17:41:27","modified_gmt":"2010-07-22T17:41:27","slug":"sherrod-and-me-in-93","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/07\/sherrod-and-me-in-93.html","title":{"rendered":"Sherrod and me, in ’93"},"content":{"rendered":"

It turns out that I spoke with Shirley Sherrod back in 1993, when I was doing that story on Welchel Long, the black farmer in Dewy Rose, Ga., who had been poorly treated by the Farmer’s Home Administration (FmHA), the USDA’s lender of last resort for small farmers. What she told me then was that many black farmers regarded FmHa as just “an agency that is there is take [their] land.” She wasn’t blowing smoke. <\/p>\n

“If anybody’s ever been discriminated against, he was,” Billy Daniel, a white retailer who sold Long farm machinery, told me. “They did everything they could to make him a failure, and when he failed they said it was bad management.” In due course, the USDA’s civil rights office found that Long had been discriminated against, but the FmHA refused to forgive any of his loans. That’s as far as I was able to follow the story, but it was obvious that something needed to be done on a grander scale, and in due course a class action lawsuit was filed, and a settlement reached. Sherrod has been personally involved in this, and it’s far from over, as TPM recounts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve posted the two stories I did back then after the jump.  <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Journal 0 Edition <\/span>Date:
\n<\/strong>Tuesday, 3\/2\/1993
\n<\/span>Section Name: <\/strong>STATE
\nNEWS <\/span>Letter & Page: <\/strong>H4 <\/span>Column
\nName: <\/strong>  <\/span>Label:
\n<\/strong> <\/span><\/b><\/span>
\n <\/span><\/span><\/b>
\nHeadline: <\/strong>Fighting to hold on to his land<\/span><\/b><\/span>
\nGeorgian charges racism in red tape<\/span><\/span><\/b>
\nDek Head: <\/strong> <\/span><\/b><\/span>
\nByline \/ Source: <\/strong>Mark<\/b>
\nSilk<\/b> \/ Staff WRITER, <\/span>Email: <\/strong> <\/span>
\nCorrection: <\/strong> <\/b><\/span>
\nCorr.-Unpub.: <\/strong> <\/b><\/span>
\nStory: <\/strong>Dewy<\/b>
\nRose<\/b>, Ga. – His house is sagging, his fields have lain fallow for five
\nyears, and he must spend three mornings a week on a kidney dialysis machine.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Welchel Long has not given up the fight to keep his farm and prove
\nracial discrimination against the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA), the U.S.
\nDepartment of Agriculture’s lender of last resort for small farmers.<\/p>\n

“I’d like to have my land clear, ” the 70-year-old farmer said
\nfirmly.<\/p>\n

A pillar of the black community, Mr. Long says he has been mistreated by the
\nwhite farmers and bureaucrats who run FmHA in Georgia. Seeking recourse in
\nWashington, he says he ran into stone walls from those monitoring civil rights
\nat the Agriculture Department.<\/p>\n

Between 1982 and 1987, when the last farm census was taken, black- owned
\nfarms declined 50 percent in the South. Since 1920, the proportion of
\nblack-owned farms nationwide has shrunk from one in seven to one in a hundred.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Long believes the election of Bill Clinton may mean a new day for
\nhim and the black farmers who remain. Mike Espy, the country’s first black
\nagriculture secretary, has pledged to end discrimination at FmHA.<\/p>\n

Sitting in his modest living room across from photos of his three sons in
\nmilitary uniform – none of whom has gone into agriculture – Mr. Long told how
\nhe made himself into Elbert County’s premier black farmer.<\/p>\n

A sharecropper’s son, he went from World War II to agriculture studies at
\nthe Tuskegee Institute.<\/p>\n

He purchased his first farmland in 1955 and planted hundreds of acres of
\ncotton, wheat and soybeans. So accomplished was he that, before integration, he
\ntaught clinics in farm management to white and black farmers alike.<\/p>\n

As president of the Elbert County NAACP, he worked for voting rights and
\nhelped integrate the fire department. He helped other black farmers apply for
\nFmHA loans.<\/p>\n

Mr. Long began getting loans from FmHA in 1978, after 13 years of trying. But
\nmoney to buy herbicides would arrive in June, when the weeds were already
\nwaist-high, and he’d lose his crop. Or he’d receive a real estate loan to pay
\nfor land but no operating funds, so he couldn’t get seeds into the ground.<\/p>\n

Many other black farmers regard FmHA simply as “an agency that is there
\nto take [their] land, ” said Shirley Sherrod, Georgia field director for
\nthe Federation of Southern Cooperatives, which works with black farmers.<\/p>\n

Mr. Long found himself buried in debt. He charged FmHA with discrimination.<\/p>\n

In 1982, state FmHA director Orson Swindle said Mr. Long’s charges were
\nmeritless and faulted him for “poor” money management and farming
\npractices.<\/p>\n

He called Mr. Long a “lifelong complainant about discrimination.”<\/p>\n

“If anybody’s ever been discriminated against, he was, ” said
\nBilly Daniel, who is white and sold Mr. Long farm machinery. “They did
\neverything they could to make him a failure, and when he failed, they said it
\nwas bad management.”<\/p>\n

In 1983, Walter Frederick of FmHA’s equal opportunity staff examined the
\ncases of Mr. Long and 11 other black farmers. He said FmHA’s financing was too
\nlittle, too late.<\/p>\n

His office told Mr. Swindle to employ farm manager Lonzie White to make sure
\nthe black farmers got their money on time. Mr. White says he was given other
\nduties – “I was not able to do the job.”<\/p>\n

“The agency had an obligation and did not fulfill it, ” Mr.
\nFrederick said. “Mr. Long would have been in good shape if the agency had
\nallowed Mr. White to do his job.”<\/p>\n

In 1990 congressional testimony, the head of the Agriculture Department’s
\ncivil rights office, Evelyn M. Wright, conceded that FmHA often failed to
\ncomply with civil rights requirements.<\/p>\n

In Washington, the resources of FmHA’s equal opportunity staff were cut
\nrepeatedly during the Reagan-Bush years. Mr. Frederick, an aggressive
\ninvestigator of civil rights complaints, was forbidden to handle cases.<\/p>\n

“I have been silenced, ” Mr. Frederick said.<\/p>\n

But having denounced discrimination at FmHA as a congressman from
\nMississippi, Mr. Espy as agriculture secretary may change the way the agency
\ndoes business.<\/p>\n

“I think you’ll see an immediate and dramatic departure from the status
\nquo, ” said Joel Berg, Mr. Espy’s press secretary.<\/p>\n

“I will use the full force of my new office to fight to ensure equal
\nopportunity for all Americans in the FmHA, ” he said in a recent interview
\nwith the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

What can Mr. Long hope for?<\/p>\n

In response to a reporter’s inquiry, the USDA civil rights office is
\nreviewing his entire FmHA file, beginning in 1978.<\/p>\n

“On a finding of discrimination, we do everything we can to make people
\nwhole, ” said the office’s director, Jim Westbrook.<\/p>\n

Even if Mr. Long were to get his farm clear, there is little hope for the
\nfuture of black farmers in his corner of northeast Georgia.<\/p>\n

Back in the 1950s, he says, 324 of Elbert County’s 1,200 farm families were
\nblack. Now, besides himself, there is one black farmer left. He blames the
\nFmHA.<\/p>\n

“We had some good farmers, ” he said. “They just stomped
\n’em.”<\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Constitution 0 Edition
\n<\/span>Date: <\/strong>Tuesday,
\n9\/7\/1993 <\/span>Section Name: <\/strong>STATE NEWS <\/span>Letter
\n& Page: <\/strong>A3
\n<\/span>Column Name: <\/strong> 
\n<\/span>Label: <\/strong> <\/span><\/b><\/span>
\n <\/span><\/span><\/b>
\nHeadline: <\/strong>First bias, now red tape for farmer in FmHA debt<\/span><\/b><\/span>
\nDek Head: <\/strong> <\/span><\/b><\/span>
\nByline \/ Source: <\/strong>Mark<\/b>
\nSilk<\/b> \/ Staff WRITER, <\/span>Email: <\/strong> <\/span>
\nCorrection: <\/strong> <\/b><\/span>
\nCorr.-Unpub.: <\/strong> <\/b><\/span>
\nStory: <\/strong>The
\nFarmers Home Administration (FmHA) has declined to forgive any of the loans it
\nmade to a black Georgia farmer even though the U.S. Agriculture Department’s
\ncivil rights office found the agency intentionally discriminated against him
\nbecause of his race.<\/span><\/p>\n

In response to the discrimination finding, FmHA last month informed Welchel
\nLong of Dewy<\/b> Rose<\/b> that he could refinance his 162-acre farm,
\nlease it or purchase his home and 10 acres – options available to FmHA
\nborrowers regardless of whether they have been discriminated against.<\/p>\n

“They are really not offering me anything, ” Mr. Long said.
\n“I’ve done my best to be straight with them, but they really don’t play
\nthe game right.”<\/p>\n

Mr. Long, 70, began borrowing money from FmHA in 1978 to plant cotton, wheat
\nand soybeans. But the funds would arrive too late to buy herbicides or would be
\nearmarked for land purchase rather than for seed.<\/p>\n

After an internal investigation, FmHA’s Georgia office was ordered to employ
\na farm manager to make sure Mr. Long and other black farmers got their money on
\ntime, but that man was given other duties, then transferred.<\/p>\n

Although eligible for loans at a 3 percent interest rate, Mr. Long was
\ncharged as much as 18 percent, and his debt rolled up to $300,000.<\/p>\n

This spring, the Agriculture Department’s civil rights office reopened an
\ninvestigation into Mr. Long’s case, and in June it found that he had been
\nblatantly discriminated against. Yet FmHA took the position that it can legally
\ndo no more than offer Mr. Long its standard refinancing remedies.<\/p>\n

“We’re trying to remedy the situation, but we can only remedy it within
\nour regulations, ” said FmHA spokesman Joe O’Neill. “There are no
\nspecific regulations for civil rights cases.”<\/p>\n

Mr. O’Neill added that FmHA had asked the Agriculture Department’s general
\ncounsel to determine whether additional remedies could be provided to Mr. Long.<\/p>\n

“It’s disappointing that an agency that admits discrimination is unable
\nto come up with a remedy, ” said Rep. Don Johnson (D-Ga.), who has made
\ninquiries on Mr. Long’s behalf. “I think they need to change those
\nregulations.”<\/p>\n

Within the Agriculture Department, there seems to be frustration with FmHA’s
\nresponse.<\/p>\n

“We believe that Mr. Long should be made whole, and the proposal falls
\nshort, ” said James Westbrooks, deputy associate director of the
\ndepartment’s civil rights office.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It turns out that I spoke with Shirley Sherrod back in 1993, when I was doing that story on Welchel Long, the black farmer in Dewy Rose, Ga., who had been poorly treated by the Farmer’s Home Administration (FmHA), the USDA’s lender of last resort for small farmers. What she told me then was that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nSherrod and me, in '93 - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/07\/sherrod-and-me-in-93.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sherrod and me, in '93 - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It turns out that I spoke with Shirley Sherrod back in 1993, when I was doing that story on Welchel Long, the black farmer in Dewy Rose, Ga., who had been poorly treated by the Farmer’s Home Administration (FmHA), the USDA’s lender of last resort for small farmers. What she told me then was that…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/07\/sherrod-and-me-in-93.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-07-22T17:41:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sherrod and me, in '93 - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/07\/sherrod-and-me-in-93.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Sherrod and me, in '93 - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","og_description":"It turns out that I spoke with Shirley Sherrod back in 1993, when I was doing that story on Welchel Long, the black farmer in Dewy Rose, Ga., who had been poorly treated by the Farmer’s Home Administration (FmHA), the USDA’s lender of last resort for small farmers. What she told me then was that…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/07\/sherrod-and-me-in-93.html","og_site_name":"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","article_published_time":"2010-07-22T17:41:27+00:00","author":"Mark Silk","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/07\/sherrod-and-me-in-93.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/07\/sherrod-and-me-in-93.html","name":"Sherrod and me, in '93 - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-07-22T17:41:27+00:00","dateModified":"2010-07-22T17:41:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#\/schema\/person\/927f8b0a579506efe527e8e0967f519d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/07\/sherrod-and-me-in-93.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/07\/sherrod-and-me-in-93.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/07\/sherrod-and-me-in-93.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Sherrod and me, in ’93"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/","name":"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","description":"Beliefnet Voices","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#\/schema\/person\/927f8b0a579506efe527e8e0967f519d","name":"Mark Silk","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c82\/c82eec82562775fad85f4a47e1a5fc4ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c82\/c82eec82562775fad85f4a47e1a5fc4ax96.jpg","caption":"Mark Silk"},"description":"Mark Silk graduated from Harvard College in 1972 and earned his Ph.D. in medieval history from Harvard University in 1982. After teaching at Harvard in the Department of History and Literature for three years, he became editor of the Boston Review. In 1987 he joined the staff of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he worked variously as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist. In 1996 he became the founding director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and in 1998 founding editor of Religion in the News, a magazine published by the Center that examines how the news media handle religious subject matter. In 2005, he was named director of the Trinity College Program on Public Values, comprising both the Greenberg Center and a new Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture directed by Barry Kosmin. In 2007, he became Professor of Religion in Public Life at the College. Professor Silk is the author of Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II and Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America. He is co-editor of Religion by Region, an eight-volume series on religion and public life in the United States, and co-author of The American Establishment, Making Capitalism Work, and One Nation Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics. In 2007 he inaugurated Spiritual Politics, a blog on religion and American political culture.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/author\/msilk"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}