Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to will Kate f Daily
Speaker 1: with Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to bring to you this week a
Speaker 1: two part conversation on the state of black farmers and
Speaker 1: ranchers in America. And you know, for many years, I've
Speaker 1: often wondered what would America look like if, following the
Speaker 1: Civil War, right and the emancipation of enslaved black people
Speaker 1: in the United States, if they had received what they
Speaker 1: were owed right, if not only had reconstruction and continued
Speaker 1: for more than twelve years, which saw black men having
Speaker 1: access to the vote and becoming members of government right
Speaker 1: at the state, local and city levels, but if also
Speaker 1: those that were enslaved, beaten, raped, terrorized, and brutalized for centuries,
Speaker 1: If those that had survived white supremacist domestic terrorism, if
Speaker 1: they had received the land right and the resources to
Speaker 1: build their lives right after having built the economy of
Speaker 1: the United States off of their backs. This is something
Speaker 1: that I think about often, and you know, it actually
Speaker 1: sometimes brings me back to Jonathan Metzel, our friend and
Speaker 1: our in house doctor's book, Dying of Whiteness, how much
Speaker 1: stronger America would be right now if white racist Americans
Speaker 1: had not then and continue now to levy so many
Speaker 1: obstacles and issues and policies on top of black Americans,
Speaker 1: that this country would be a place of bounty right
Speaker 1: for everyone. And so come now to the conversation that
Speaker 1: I'm having this week, and that is with April Simpson,
Speaker 1: who is a reporter and the person that is leading
Speaker 1: the season three of the award winning podcast The Heist,
Speaker 1: which has had two very successful seasons, and The Heist
Speaker 1: in season three focuses on a heist by the US
Speaker 1: government of land and wealth from America's black farmers and ranchers.
Speaker 1: And April, who I will speak to next, reports on
Speaker 1: this series and it is anchored around Nate Bradford, who
Speaker 1: you will hear from tomorrow, who is a black rancher
Speaker 1: and comes from a family of ranchers and the issues
Speaker 1: that he has had. And you know, this entire series,
Speaker 1: this next season is all tied to a recent study
Speaker 1: that found this. Folks, listen to this because when I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the disruption, the purposeful disruption of black wealth,
Speaker 1: the racial wealth gap has always been discussed as if
Speaker 1: it is oh We just need to provide these underserved
Speaker 1: black people with opportunities and then they can thrive. They
Speaker 1: just need more education. Blah blah blah. No, Actually, what
Speaker 1: black people in this country has needed is for white
Speaker 1: people to get the fuck out of their way, right
Speaker 1: And why do I say that, because I want you
Speaker 1: to take in this number right now. Season three of
Speaker 1: The Heist is tied to a study that found that
Speaker 1: black farmers lost three hundred and twenty six billion dollars
Speaker 1: with a b in land in the twentieth century alone.
Speaker 1: That's more than the entire GDP of Chile and Columbia.
Speaker 1: That discrimination has largely been at the hands of the
Speaker 1: US Department of Agriculture, which was established by President Lincoln
Speaker 1: during the Civil War. Three hundred and twenty six billion dollars.
Speaker 1: And I know that you have listened to Secretary of
Speaker 1: Transportation Pete Buddhadette on this show and others when he
Speaker 1: spoke about the discrimination that had been done to break
Speaker 1: up black communities and put highways right through towns and
Speaker 1: communities through farmland. Go in and just seize land from
Speaker 1: black owners and give them nothing in return for it.
Speaker 1: This has been the fundamental practice of this government since Lincoln.
Speaker 1: So when we talk about the racial wealth gap, it
Speaker 1: isn't something that occurred because there was a quote unquote
Speaker 1: lack of educational opportunity. The reason why black people in
Speaker 1: this country find themselves making ten twenty times less and
Speaker 1: having less wealth than their white neighbors and counterparts is
Speaker 1: largely because of the United States government's theft, lies, deceit,
Speaker 1: and discrimination that has been interwoven into policies for hundreds
Speaker 1: of bucking years. I can tell you, folks that when
Speaker 1: I began this interview with April and Nate, who you
Speaker 1: will hear from tomorrow, I knew a little right. I
Speaker 1: knew enough to know that the United States government has
Speaker 1: always been at the front of ensuring the racial wealth gap,
Speaker 1: of solidifying the racial wealth gap in this country, and
Speaker 1: taking absolutely no responsibility and continuing along with the narrative that, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, black folks are just lazy, or they just
Speaker 1: need more education, or to pick themselves up from them
Speaker 1: boots straps, understanding that white wealth in this country was
Speaker 1: formed around the obstacles that were put in the way
Speaker 1: for their black counterparts. Why is it that I have
Speaker 1: some friends that have land and businesses that were passed
Speaker 1: down in their families from their great great grandparents, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, why don't you have anything right, No land,
Speaker 1: no business, no nothing. Oh because black people, their families
Speaker 1: were denied those loans, those mortgages, the land rights, run
Speaker 1: off of their land. And so each generation has just
Speaker 1: been trying to keep their head above water that the
Speaker 1: United States government has been drowning them in. So in
Speaker 1: this conversation coming up next with April Simpson, we get
Speaker 1: into the conversation that The Heist, the award winning podcast
Speaker 1: is having this season around black farmers and ranchers and
Speaker 1: government theft. That conversation, dear friends, is coming up next, folks.
Speaker 1: I am very happy to welcome to wikate f Daily
Speaker 1: for the first time April Simpson, who is the reporter
Speaker 1: who is reporting on an award winning podcast, The Heist,
Speaker 1: which who season two, The Wealth of Vartax, won the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three Excellence and Financial Journalism Award for Best
Speaker 1: Audio Reporting, and this season, which will come out on
Speaker 1: October third, focuses on the heist by the US government
Speaker 1: of land and wealth from America's black farmers and ranchers. April,
Speaker 1: please talk to us about I mean your work. One
Speaker 1: has been at the Center for Public Integrity, you have
Speaker 1: been a US Fulbright fellow, you have been at the
Speaker 1: London School of Economics. You have covered this issue and
Speaker 1: many issues around agriculture and reported on it. Talk to
Speaker 1: us about the plight of black farmers in the US.
Speaker 1: That is not mainstream knowledge.
Speaker 2: Okay, sure, and black farmers have long had issues in
Speaker 2: gaining access to credit, being able to get loans, even
Speaker 2: loan applications, being able to get that money in a
Speaker 2: way that is timely because agriculture is obviously so time sensitive,
Speaker 2: and they've often had an issue with the Department of
Speaker 2: Agriculture and that it being a lender to farmers who
Speaker 2: aren't able to get credit anywhere else. And this kind
Speaker 2: of documented history of discrimination has been going on for
Speaker 2: a very long time. Some would argue that it's been
Speaker 2: going on since the founding of the department, which happened
Speaker 2: during the Civil War under President Lincoln. And yeah, reports
Speaker 2: that go through, you know, from the sixties, eighties, and nineties,
Speaker 2: and all of that ended up with a class action
Speaker 2: settlement that I'm sure you'll you'll want to talk about
Speaker 2: in the late nineties that black farmers were successful in
Speaker 2: settling with the government around So one of the.
Speaker 1: Things that I did not realize, and I think is
Speaker 1: brought up in the description of this upcoming season, is
Speaker 1: that black farmers lost three hundred and twenty six billion
Speaker 1: dollars in land in the twentieth century alone. Talk to
Speaker 1: us about that staggering number in the twentieth century, and
Speaker 1: then in conjunction with the lawsuit that they won and
Speaker 1: how much that was actually for if it was even
Speaker 1: a drop in the bucket in comparison to the theft.
Speaker 2: Right, so that three hundred and twenty six billion dollars
Speaker 2: is obviously a very staggering figure. It's these researchers release
Speaker 2: that data showing that, you know, black farmers have lost
Speaker 2: this amount in land and in wealth because when you
Speaker 2: have land, it can be used as collateral to you know,
Speaker 2: get loans or credit. It it's you know, it's a
Speaker 2: wealth building tool. It often leads to political uh uh,
Speaker 2: what's the word I'm looking for? Political power of locally,
Speaker 2: a lot of folks who are landowners are also you know,
Speaker 2: community community leaders, and so black farmers have been denied
Speaker 2: all of this over the past century. There's you know,
Speaker 2: other stats from the Census of Agriculture that shows, you know,
Speaker 2: black farmers are the only racial group of farmers who
Speaker 2: have decreased over the last century. Obviously, armland ownership has
Speaker 2: decreased in a saggering way as well, and so you know,
Speaker 2: all of that has been happening black farmers wage. Like
Speaker 2: I said, a successful class action suit against the Department
Speaker 2: in the late nineties called Pickford versus Clickman, and that
Speaker 2: suit acknowledged that black farmers had long been denied loans,
Speaker 2: delayed loans, just not given access to the benefits and
Speaker 2: resources that white farmers were given access to from the
Speaker 2: Department of Agriculture, and oftentimes that led to them losing
Speaker 2: their land, you know, going into foreclosure, just not being
Speaker 2: able to plant on time, being pretty much set up
Speaker 2: for failure because if you get that loan too late
Speaker 2: in the season, like you're not going to have a
Speaker 2: successful crop, You're not going to have a good harvest season.
Speaker 2: So the settlement in that case, because it didn't actually
Speaker 2: go to trial, there was a settlement agreement that the
Speaker 2: parties agreed to, and the settlement in that case had
Speaker 2: essentially two tracks. They call them Track A and Track B.
Speaker 2: And for track A. You had to show proof of discrimination.
Speaker 2: You had to show that there was a similarly situated
Speaker 2: white farmer who was given access to the resources that
Speaker 2: you were denied. You had to show like an economic loss.
Speaker 2: And after you showed these things, you were given fifty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars and the opportunity to have some debt forgiven
Speaker 2: that was tied to specific loans where they found racial discrimination.
Speaker 2: The other option that farmers had was Track B, and
Speaker 2: that would have been much more, much more beneficial in
Speaker 2: terms of the funding that they were given. But they
Speaker 2: still had to show substantial proof or preponderance of ever
Speaker 2: evidence of discrimination. They had to gather a lot more paperwork,
Speaker 2: they had to present it at what's kind of like
Speaker 2: a mini trial, and they had to show that their
Speaker 2: losses were greater than fifty thousand. Ultimately, only I think
Speaker 2: one percent or less than one percent of farmers actually
Speaker 2: went with TRACKB. Some farmers say, such as the one
Speaker 2: that we interview in the podcast, Eddie Slott, who was
Speaker 2: a claimant. He says that the lawyers encouraged the farmers
Speaker 2: to go with Track A because you know, even though
Speaker 2: the bar was still fairly high, it was lower than
Speaker 2: Track BE and the opportunity to have their debt forgiven.
Speaker 2: Those loans forgiven was the real draw, but ultimately most
Speaker 2: farmers didn't get any loan forgiveness.
Speaker 1: So I'm just disgusted, right, I, like anyone at his
Speaker 1: listening to this and thinking about the like I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about pretty much every presidential candidate talking about Middle America,
Speaker 1: talking about real Americans and bootstraps and land and the
Speaker 1: way that they show fields in their political campaigns. And
Speaker 1: not one president you tell me if I'm wrong, has
Speaker 1: come out and done anything on behalf of black farmers, like,
Speaker 1: done anything to really push for or provide this kind
Speaker 1: of debt relief, provide any type of restitution for centuries
Speaker 1: of pillage over their property and their ability to grow
Speaker 1: wealth in this country.
Speaker 2: I mean the Pickford and the efforts around it started
Speaker 2: under the Clinton administration and a Secretary of Agriculture at
Speaker 2: that time, Dan Glickman. You know from what I've read
Speaker 2: and from my reporting, people talk about how sympathetic he
Speaker 2: was to the plight of black farmers. There was a
Speaker 2: section second settlement for those who didn't make it to
Speaker 2: the first pick for two, and that happened under the
Speaker 2: Obama administration and then now under Biden, which has had
Speaker 2: you know, this administration has had a big focus on
Speaker 2: racial equity rights, like the Executive Order from day one
Speaker 2: had a program in the American Rescue Plan at the
Speaker 2: COVID Relief Bill that was trying to relieve the debts
Speaker 2: of farmers of color. Ultimately that faced legal challenges, it
Speaker 2: was rescinded. It was replaced with a new program and
Speaker 2: the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 1: So what is the percentage of black farmers that are
Speaker 1: left in the country.
Speaker 2: It's less than two percent.
Speaker 1: It's less than two percent. And has is that largely
Speaker 1: due to this theft? Is it largely due to big
Speaker 1: ag right, like these bigger agricultural companies coming in and
Speaker 1: being able to you know, do land grabs.
Speaker 2: Essentially, there are a lot of different factors involved, and
Speaker 2: USDA discrimination is one of them. I mean other factors
Speaker 2: are I guess also within USDA, but outside of the
Speaker 2: Lending Department is the Civil Rights Office that has you know,
Speaker 2: long been ineffective in processing and investigating complaints. It actually
Speaker 2: closed during or you know what was not effective during
Speaker 2: the Origan administration. And that's when a lot of the
Speaker 2: documents from these black farmers were allow There's this also
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, these broader trends in mechanization and farm consolidation. Uh,
Speaker 2: there's errors property when landowners don't have proper title to
Speaker 2: their land and are vulnerable to having that land essentially
Speaker 2: taken from them.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just extraordinary, April, this story, this series
Speaker 1: and like this plight, and I wonder, like what, as
Speaker 1: you were interviewing these different farmers that have been affected
Speaker 1: by this, what are your what are your hopes for this,
Speaker 1: you know, for the new season in terms of like
Speaker 1: what people learn and get out of it, And is
Speaker 1: there any type of advocacy that people listening, you know,
Speaker 1: would be able to to offer or is this just
Speaker 1: it's the necessity to tell the story.
Speaker 2: I think it's an important story to tell, especially at
Speaker 2: this moment right because it's a very tricky legal environment.
Speaker 2: We're also in a with the Supreme Court case that
Speaker 2: struck down affirmative action in higher education. You know, it's
Speaker 2: also just a tricky political environment in terms of doing
Speaker 2: any kind of race based programming. So I think it's
Speaker 2: an important historical story to tell. I hope that it
Speaker 2: is educational for people who are not aware of the
Speaker 2: apply to black farmers and this very recent history and
Speaker 2: what's happened under the Abiden administration and the challenges around that,
Speaker 2: and I just I hope it just complicates the thinking
Speaker 2: around how we think about, you know, colorblind versus race
Speaker 2: based remedy.
Speaker 1: How do you think that the Supreme Court decision around
Speaker 1: affirmative action will come into play? Because again, these are
Speaker 1: issues that, while they're couched in you know, secondary education,
Speaker 1: have ramifications across industry and business, and so how do
Speaker 1: you think you know that that does come into play
Speaker 1: moving forward, even if you know you have a you know,
Speaker 1: sympathetic administration that sees wrongdoing and wants to write it,
Speaker 1: the ability to actually do that.
Speaker 2: I think that it's it's tricky for the administration, right because,
Speaker 2: like you said, they are committed to racial equity and
Speaker 2: racial justice, and you know, from the American Rescue Plan Act,
Speaker 2: we know that they were trying to do something to
Speaker 2: help farmers of color in Particularler. But I also think
Speaker 2: because of this Supreme Court case, they want to avoid
Speaker 2: any kind of litigation and are trying to push through
Speaker 2: efforts that are going to succeed. And granted, the more
Speaker 2: recent efforts are color blind. But you know, and also
Speaker 2: we don't actually know, because the data is not being released,
Speaker 2: how much black farmers or any farmers of color are
Speaker 2: benefiting from more of the recent programs. But from what
Speaker 2: we know about loan delinquency and black farmers something like
Speaker 2: more than fifty percent are delinquent on their loans, we
Speaker 2: know that they should at least in large part, be
Speaker 2: benefiting from these programs. So yeah, I think I think
Speaker 2: they don't want to get sued. They're trying to avoid that.
Speaker 1: What do you think, like, what stood out to you
Speaker 1: the most in the people that you talk to and
Speaker 1: in the research that you did for dis latest season?
Speaker 1: What got you got what got to you the most
Speaker 1: in terms of your reporting.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've spoken to a lot of black farm advocates,
Speaker 2: a lot of elder black farmers in particular, who were
Speaker 2: claimants in the Pickford case, and I'm always struck by
Speaker 2: their passion after you know, twenty five some odd years,
Speaker 2: and their commitment to educating me and educating others around
Speaker 2: this history. And I'm always grateful for the time that
Speaker 2: people are willing to spend with me on that. And
Speaker 2: then on the flip side, you know, I've been struck
Speaker 2: by Nate and his commitment to try to make it
Speaker 2: as a rancher despite all these odds, despite the history
Speaker 2: of government discrimination that he kind of walked into right
Speaker 2: as like a younger farmer. And it's essentially like looming
Speaker 2: over him and looming over the work that he's tried
Speaker 2: to do. That discrimination affected his father, and these, you know,
Speaker 2: broader changes that are happening with the industry are also
Speaker 2: affecting him. But he's he's trying to make it regardless.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's it's just, you know, it is a
Speaker 1: really important story to tell, particularly at a time when
Speaker 1: you have Republican politicians working to erase any semblance of
Speaker 1: the truth about America's you know, sounding about injustice and
Speaker 1: obstacles and discrimination that we're faced. And I think that
Speaker 1: this is absolutely a story that needs to be told
Speaker 1: and should be told, and I'm just really thankful that
Speaker 1: you did tell it. Please tell people, you know, if
Speaker 1: they want to find out more information on this topic,
Speaker 1: on this issue, what they can what they can do.
Speaker 2: Sure so, our show will be on our website at
Speaker 2: public Integrity dot org and there'll be a collection of
Speaker 2: stories that publish alongside each podcast episode every Tuesday in October,
Speaker 2: and those stories are you know, kind of complimentarated each
Speaker 2: episode and they dig into it a particular issue a
Speaker 2: little bit deeper. There are you know, a number of
Speaker 2: advocacy groups. There's there are also books that people could
Speaker 2: go to for just a deeper knowledge. There's a wonderful
Speaker 2: book by Pete Daniel called This Possession that is kind
Speaker 2: of the textbook I think of as a textbook around
Speaker 2: the ply the Black farmers. And there's like these academic papers,
Speaker 2: like the paper you referenced around three hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: six billion lost in land and wealth that was done
Speaker 2: by Thomas Mitchell, a researcher at Boston College and another
Speaker 2: researcher at University of Massachusetts, Boston. Those would be a
Speaker 2: couple of good places to start.
Speaker 1: Amazing. Well, April, thank you so much for taking the
Speaker 1: time to join ok F Daily, and thank you for
Speaker 1: this reporting, this really important reporting. We really appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, Dear friends on Woke
Speaker 1: ap as always, power to the people and to all
Speaker 1: the people. Power, get woke and stay woke. As fup