John Boyd Featured in JET Magazine

By Clarence Waldron / JET Magazine

At the urging of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), the House of Representatives recently approved a new farm bill that provides $100 million to help settle discrimination lawsuits filed by Black farmers.

“This is a huge victory for Black farmers,” John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, told JET. “We will be able to mover our cases forward based on their merits. The $100 million won’t be enough, but it is a start. We are happen that the Caucus helped us with this.”

The bill will benefit as many as 70,000 current and former Black farmers who had filed a class action discrimination suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1997, maintaining that the department discriminated against them when they applied for loans.

The USDA reached a settlement with Black farmers in 1999, but thousands of them missed the deadline to file their claims. Civil rights advocates and lawmakers said the Black farmers were not given enough notice to present their cases.

The new farm bill goes to the Senate in the fall for final approval.

Boyd said the bill, if passed into law, will “bring long overdue relief to thousands of Black farmers across the country.