Boyd, John W. Jr. 1965–

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John W. Boyd, Jr. 1965–

Farmer, activist

Founded National Black Farmers Association

On December 12, 1996, 60 African American farmers from across the United States converged on the White House in Washington, D.C. The purpose for their gathering was to wage a boisterous, angry protest against a decades-old system of racial discrimination within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Among the issues discussed at an afternoon meeting between the farmers and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Daniel Glickman were an end to farm foreclosures, the return of foreclosed land, and financial compensation for the thousands of farmers who had been denied essential loans because of their race. The White House rally and subsequent caucus helped bring the plight of African American farmers into the national spotlight.

In the early 1900s, African American farmers owned extensive tracts of arable land throughout the United States and made a significant contribution to the nation’s production of corn, soybeans, and wheat. In the late 1990s, however, African American farmers represent less than one percent of all farmers in America. They are also disappearing at a rate three times faster than that of farmers nationwide. While 14 percent of all farms in the United States vanished between 1982 and 1992, African American-owned farms declined by 43 percent from 33,250 in 1982 to 18,816 in 1992.

The movement of African Americans away from the land can be linked to a number of trends, including northern migration and a lack of interest in farming among African American youth. Also, according to a 1990 House Committee report, racial bias within the USDA is a real and pervasive problem, and programs designed to alleviate it have met with only limited success. “The discrimination …is not overt or blatant,” wrote Michael A. Fletcher in the Washington Post “Instead, it unfolds in a sprawling, decentralized bureaucracy, the cumulative result of hundreds of decisions made by USDA supervisors in 2,500 state, district and county offices across rural America. While business reasons are invariably cited, the net result is that black farmers wait longer for loan decisions, and are far more likely to be rejected for loans, than their white counterparts.”

Refused to Accept Discrimination

When Virginia poultry farmer John W. Boyd, Jr. watched

At a Glance…

Born John W. Boyd, Jr., September 4, 1965, in Queens, NY; son of John W. Boyd, Sr. (a farmer) and Betty J. Boyd; married Kim S. Hardy, 198B (divorced 1994); one son. Education: Attended Southside Community College, 1983, and Clemson Univ., 1984-85.

Career: Farmer, 1983-; founder and president, National Black Farmers Association, 1995-

Member: NAACP.

Addresses: Home —68 Wind Road, Baskervilie, VA 23915. Office —National Black Farmers Association, P.O. Box 508, Heathsvifle, VA 22473.

as his loan application was tossed into a trash can during an interview with a USDA official in 1989, he decided to fight back. Two years later, when he had still not received a satisfactory explanation for the rejection, Boyd filed a discrimination complaint through his local civil rights office. His case was investigated, and the official in question was eventually moved to another location. Boyd’s complaint with the USDA was finally settled after five years of legal wrangling. However, the operating money he needed to keep his farm alive was not forthcoming, his applications for other forms of farm assistance were disregarded, and routine inquiries about his loan balances and payment schedules went unanswered. Boyd spent the next several years relying on financial help from family members. His finances eventually spiralled out of control, he lost his lucrative poultry contract, and he was forced to declare bankruptcy. The final insult came in November of 1996, when an auction sign appeared on Boyd’s front lawn. He cut it in half with his power saw and threw it into the county official’s truck. “I knew I had my back up against the wall and I was going to lose everything I had,” he said in an interview with CBB “I had used up almost all my rights and was just barely holding on.”

Boyd’s sense of outrage and frustration, as well as a profound sense of isolation, eventually drew him to dozens of other African American farmers who had experienced similar difficulties. Calling themselves the National Black Farmers Association (NBFA) and adopting the motto, “We have our mule, now we’re looking for our 40 acres,” a group of 60 farmers led by Boyd, travelled to Washington to make their voices heard. The White House demonstration and impromptu meeting with Agriculture Secretary Glickman marked the first attempt by Boyd’s group to create a sense of solidarity among African American farmers. It also gave them the power to reclaim their rights and regain their land. One year later, following another White House rally, Boyd and 15 other African American farmers met with President Bill Clinton to discuss the magnitude of the problems facing small, minority farmers. During the three-hour meeting, the President outlined his requests for the 1999 agricultural budget. This budget included $500 million in direct operating loans, $85 million in direct farm ownership, $10 million for outreach training and technical assistance for small farmers, and the creation of a permanent federal advisory committee on civil rights to keep the USDA up to date on current and changing legislation.

John W. Boyd, Jr. was born in Queens, New York in 1965, and spent the first 15 years of his life in an urban environment. Every summer, Boyd’s parents would send him and his brother to their grandparents’ farm in the rolling hills of southern Virginia, where they helped out tending hogs and harvesting tobacco. When Boyd was a teenager and, as he told CBB, “just beginning to get into trouble,” his grandfather fell ill, and the family moved to Virginia to take over the farm. “It was the best move of my life,” he said in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Took an Interest in Farming

After finishing high school, Boyd was offered a number of athletic scholarships. Because his parents could not afford to make up the difference in tuition, he enrolled at Southside Community College in Richmond. He soon found himself becoming interested in farming and, in 1984, he managed to scrape together enough money to spend several semesters studying agriculture at Clemson University in South Carolina. Eventually, he was unable to afford the tuition and was forced to drop out. Around the same time, he fell in love with a rundown tobacco farm near South Hill in Baskervilie, Virginia, not far from his father’s land. Although the fields were overgrown, the soil depleted, and the farmhouse was in a dilapidated state, Boyd recognized the farm’s potential and offered to buy it from its elderly African American owner, who was losing it to foreclosure. As it turned out, the man received nothing from the sale after his debts to the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA)—the credit agency of the USDA, now called the Farm Service Agency—were paid. Boyd now remarks that the old farmer’s predicament should have alerted him to the difficulties that lay ahead. However, he was too caught up in his own plans for the farm to take much notice. After waiting nearly a year, he managed to obtain a FmHA loan to buy the farm, as well as operating money to run it. He quickly set to work to improve the land.

“Sometimes [Boyd’s] applications for programs were ignored… or were thrown in the wastebasket… or were delayed past planting time,” wrote Mary Beausoleil in the Times-Dispatch.” He was told programs weren’t available or there was no money for them, only to learn later that white farmers had obtained money through the same program.” she continued. At first, Boyd told CBB, “I thought it was just a schism between me and the county supervisor, but then I began to talk to other black farmers in the community, and they were all having the same problems.”

All farmers, especially those just starting out, rely heavily on financing to improve their farms and cover their annual operating expenses. Without these loans, which are based on the next year’s projected crop yield, many face bankruptcy. Those who cannot obtain private credit turn to the USDA for help, and it is here, according to African American farmers, that discrimination is rampant.

As early as 1980, an organization calling itself the North Carolina Black Farmers filed a discrimination complaint against the FmHA. An investigation conducted by the Compliance Branch of the Office of Equal Opportunity uncovered discrepancies in the real estate appraisal of farmland owned by African Americans, as well as disparities in the number and value of emergency loans made to them. The report also revealed that, unlike whites, African American farmers were not given the opportunity to defer loan payments and, as a condition of their loans, were forced to agree to voluntary liquidation of their property.

Seventeen years later, USDA figures obtained by the National Black Farmers Association, revealed that only 2.3 percent of the 22,978 loans granted by the FmHA in fiscal 1997 went to African American farmers, compared with 91.4 percent to whites, 4.2 percent to Hispanics, and 1.2 percent to Native Americans. During the same period, African Americans received only 1.3 percent of the $1.9 billion loaned, and none of the 161 emergency loans granted. One of the farmers’ greatest concerns has been the need to obtain federal loan assistance early enough to plant the current year’s crop and to maximize its growth potential. According to an investigation commissioned by Agriculture Secretary Glickman in 1997, it takes the government moré than seven months to process loans for African Americans, compared with only 60 days for white farmers.

Founded National Black Farmers Association

Boyd’s willingness to speak out and share his frustrations encouraged other desperate farmers to do the same. “Everybody else said, ‘You know something, that happened to me, but it was only worse,’” he told CBB “I heard some terrible things, and the further south you go, the worse the story gets…. It’s tough for all farmers, but when you throw in discrimination and racism and unfair lending practices, it’s really hard for you to make it.” he continued.

By the spring of 1995, Boyd knew he had to do something more to salvage his farm and those of his neighbors. With no existing organization to turn to, he had only one option: form one of his own. “The first time I said ‘National Black Farmers Association’ instead of ‘John Boyd,’ people came to the phone, even though at the time it was only me,” he told the Times-Dispatch.

Boyd’s efforts to settle his own complaint with the USDA led him to uncover an enormous backlog of unresolved discrimination cases, some dating back as far as the 1960s. In many instances, the discrimination was clearly documented and, more often than not, the problems could be traced directly to the agency’s thousands of local field offices. The USDA’s presence is felt in every. county throughout the United States, where three-member panels appointed by the agency make recommendations on loan applications filed by local farmers. In recent years, the Department has added a minority adviser to the local committees in counties with a minority population of at least 20 percent. However, according to the farmers, little has changed. “So much happens on the local level, and there hasn’t been any accountability,” Boyd told CBB.

In his interview with CBB, Boyd suggested that the USDA and its vast network of local committees worked quietly, yet deliberately, to remove valuable land from African American farmers. “They decide, ‘Let’s go ahead and foreclose on him,’” he said. “They might not buy the land themselves, but they’ll get their brother to buy it, or their brother-in-law. They get the land at 30 cents on the dollar, so if I owed $ 100,000, they could get it for $30,000.” According to Boyd, the USDA has some $1.5 million acres in inventory, 53 percent of which was formerly African American-owned land.

The NBFA’s first Washington rally in December of 1996 prompted USDA officials to conduct a series of “listening sessions” around the country in early 1997. The sessions, organized to investigate allegations of civil rights abuses in the agency’s programs, resulted in the release of a special report entitled “Civil Rights at the United States Department of Agriculture.” The report concluded that over the past three decades, systematic civil rights abuses have occurred, and listed 92 recommendations for change. Small improvements have been introduced, but they have had little impact. Progress has also been impeded by alleged discrimination against minority employees within the USDA who have rallied behind the NBFA.

In April of 1997, four months after the NBFA’s first Washington rally, Boyd organized another protest outside the White House. Over 200 African American farmers joined the rally, which was followed by a special hearing of the Congressional Black Caucus. After listening to dozens of farmers relate stories of discriminatory treatment they allegedly received at USDA field offices, Agriculture Secretary Glickman acknowledged that addressing the problem of civil rights was the agency’s top challenge. “On my watch,” he was quoted as saying in the Associated Press, “we’ll change the culture of the Department of Agriculture … We will close down the culture of ‘the last plantation’ and reopen the door to ‘the people’s department.’”

Struggle Became Front-page News

By December of 1997, the NBFA had become a highly visible organization and a powerful force for political change. An anniversary march held in front of the White House, complete with tractors and a mule named “Struggle,” made front-page headlines. Secretary Glickman also announced that he would reinstate the USDA’s civil rights enforcement unit, and order the agency’s field offices to halt foreclosures on all farms where the owner had filed a discrimination complaint. In addition, Congresswoman Eva Clayton of North Carolina introduced a new initiative entitled “The USDA Accountability and Equity Act.” This act is designed to prevent future discrimination, make loans more accessible to disadvantaged farmers, and change the appointment system for local loan committee members to encourage fair and impartial decision-making.

The farmers achieved a major breakthrough in July of 1998 when the U.S. Senate voted to waive a two-year statute of limitations that had prevented farmers from receiving compensation, even if farm loans or other benefits had been withheld unfairly. Estimates released by the Congressional Budget Office suggest that relief for farmers’ claims could amount to $42 million over the next three years. “Inexplicably, the discrimination that many minority farmers suffered at the hands of USDA officials still has not been punished or mitigated,” Virginia Senator Charles S. Robb, who has worked closely with Boyd and the NBFA, was quoted as saying in the Times-Dispatch “Too many farmers and communities have been affected by this travesty.” While the USDA has put the number of backlogged cases that could be affected by the legislation at less than 200, Boyd estimates that as many as 1,000 cases could be involved.

Boyd spends half of his time in Baskerville, running his 200-acre poultry and tobacco farm with the help of his father and two cousins, and the other half lobbying in Washington. He has a contract with Perdue Farms that provides a steady income, and his recent settlement with the USDA has helped him recoup his losses. Although the NBFA is officially headquartered at Boyd’s farm in Baskerville, he also maintains an office in nearby Heaths-ville where he runs an outreach program for minority youth at area agricultural colleges, and a technical support program for farmers. “Technical support” ranges from helping farmers complete loan applications and other documentation properly and providing information about farm-support programs to lending tractors and other machinery to needy farmers. The NBFA operates on a shoestring budget, and survives on membership dues and donations from families and friends.

Newspaper articles and reports on prime-time television shows such as CNN’s Newsstand, Nightline, and the CBS Evening News have attracted vital media attention to the plight of African American farmers and has helped to speed the process of political change. By the end of 1998, some 225 new cases were expected to be settled with the USDA. In 1997 the department closed 141 discrimination complaints, including 11 major settlements amounting to $3.5 million.

John Boyd is encouraged by the progress that has been made, but remains relentless in his pursuit of justice. He is spurred on by the struggles of countless African American farmers who depend upon the NBFA for survival. “The question I asked myself,” he told CBB, “was, if this happened to me—I’m young, I’ve got damn good common sense—what happened to the older farmers, the illiterate ones, the ones that didn’t have the will to fight… who weren’t going to call the Government 80 times before they got a response? What happened to all those people? And I found out. They were basically wiped out. They lost the land. Because if you lose all your land, you have lost all your heritage. And I really sincerely believe that.”