Obama to propose $1.25B for black farmers

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Obama to propose $1.25B for black farmers

By BEN EVANS – May 06, 2009
AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is proposing that the government provide $1.25 billion to settle discrimination claims by black farmers against the Agriculture Department.

The White House said the money would be included in the president's 2010 budget request to be unveiled Thursday.

Obama had taken criticism earlier this year from black farmers and lawmakers who said the federal government was neglecting the need for more money to fund claims under a decade-old class-action lawsuit against the government.

In a statement, Obama said the proposed settlement funds would "close this chapter" in the agency's history and allow it to move on.

"My hope is that the farmers and their families who were denied access to USDA loans and programs will be made whole and will have the chance to rebuild their lives and their businesses," he said.

John Boyd, who has spearheaded the litigation as head of the National Black Farmers Association and has been particularly critical of Obama recently, called the proposal a "step in the right direction."
But he said more money would be needed.

"We think this is a good step in the negotiating process. We're glad to know this issue is on the president's radar screen and we commend him for taking this step," he said. But "we need to make sure that none of the black farmers are left out."

At issue is the class-action Pigford lawsuit, named after Timothy Pigford, a black farmer from North Carolina who was among the original plaintiffs. Thousands of farmers sued USDA claiming they had for years been denied government loans and other assistance that routinely went to whites. The government settled in 1999 and has paid out nearly $1 billion in damages on almost 16,000 claims.

Since then, other farmers have pushed to reopen the case because they missed deadlines for filing. Many said they didn't know that damages were available.

Last year, Congress passed a proposal sponsored by then-Sen. Obama and others to give more farmers a chance at a settlement. But the measure included a budget of only $100 million — far short of what is likely needed. With an estimated 65,000 additional claims, some estimate the case could cost the government another $2 billion or $3 billion.

While Obama's proposal represents a marked shift from the Bush administration, which had fought paying new claims, it was unclear how the plan might be received on Capitol Hill.

Earlier this week, Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Kay Hagan, D-N.C., introduced legislation that would allow access to an unlimited judgment fund at the Department of Treasury to pay successful claims "I don't know other fields of litigation where there's a limit on the payments," Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., said Wednesday, speaking before the White House announced the proposal.

Most claimants in the original case opted to seek expedited payments that required a relatively low burden of proof. The payments were $50,000 plus $12,500 in tax breaks.

[Malsua]

Reparations by any other name....

[Segestan]

unlimited immigration, unlimited funds for Black farmers. I think I see SA Two coming. I only hope Liberals get exterminated with whites.

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More social justice and redistributive change at work...

Black farmers: Government to fund racial bias settlement

By Paul Courson, CNN
February 18, 2010 6:35 p.m. EST


John Boyd, founder of the black farmers group, participates
in a rally Monday outside the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Settlement covers as many as 80,000 black farmers at price of more than $1 billion
• Deal connected to 1999 class action lawsuit
• Agriculture Department: Racial bias took place over many years
• For example, black farmers had tougher time getting loans than whites, USDA says

Washington (CNN) -- The head of the National Black Farmers Association said Thursday the U.S. government has agreed to pay qualified farmers $50,000 each to settle claims of racial bias.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said those farmers may also pursue a claim for actual damages from the bias, and potentially receive up to $250,000.

The settlement, which covers as many as 80,000 black farmers at a price of more than $1 billion, still needs to be funded by Congress, both sides acknowledged Thursday.

The 2010 farm bill, still pending in Congress, includes more than $1 billion to cover the compensation claims.

In a written statement Thursday, President Obama said his administration "is dedicated to ensuring that federal agencies treat all our citizens fairly, and the settlement in the Pigford case reflects that commitment."

The Pigford case was decided in favor of black farmers by a federal judge's ruling in 1999.

The head of the farmers group, John Boyd, said: "It's really the Department of Agriculture agreeing to pay, the Justice Department agreeing to pay and our lawyers agreeing to the process."

In a conference telephone call with reporters, Vilsack said racial bias unquestionably took place in his agency over many years.

He gave an example of two farmers, one white, one black, applying for a farm loan with an office of the USDA. The white farmer's application "was processed rapidly, it was approved, and resources were quickly available to enable him to put a crop in," Vilsack said.

The application from the black farmer "was denied without due diligence on whether he had the capacity to repay, or else he or she was strung out over such a long period of time that they couldn't put in a crop," Vilsack said.

The result, Vilsack said, was that "in some cases they lost the farm."

This month Boyd's group organized demonstrations throughout historically black agricultural areas of the South, including areas in Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Virginia, Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia.

The rallies wrapped up Monday as a small group of activists gathered outside the Agriculture Department in Washington. Boyd and other demonstrators expressed frustration that Congress has yet to approve a budget that would pay for the 1999 class action settlement in the case.

Part of the reason lawmakers were reluctant in the past to provide funding, Vilsack said, was their concern that no agreement -- such as the one announced Thursday -- was on the table.

He described a two-track process in which black farmers could receive a flat $50,000 payout with minimal proof linking discrimination to the denial of federal farm support.

A more rigorous system of proof could establish actual damages and yield a potential payout up to $250,000, depending on how many other claimants also prove their cases to draw from the funding provided by Congress.

Boyd acknowledged "not everyone will qualify" for the payments.

"It's still a victory that their claims will be reviewed as a result of this agreement, which at least gives them a chance and keeps this out of courts, where no one gets any money," he said.

Vilsack, noting the farm bill is still awaiting approval, said he didn't think "anybody in Congress doubts there's a responsibility to settle."

However, if no funding exists by the end of March, farmers can walk away from the agreement if they desire, he said.

Boyd said he will meet Friday with the staffs of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to affirm that the agreement should be funded.

[Ryan Ruck]

40 acres and a mule?

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Video Shows USDA Official Saying She Didn't Give 'Full Force' of Help to White Farmer

Published July 19, 2010
FoxNews.com

*** -UPDATED 2100 ET: She just resigned per FNC ****

Days after the NAACP clashed with Tea Party members over allegations of racism, a video has surfaced showing an Agriculture Department official regaling an NAACP audience with a story about how she withheld help to a white farmer facing bankruptcy -- video that now has forced the official to resign.

Shirley Sherrod, the department's Georgia director of Rural Development, is shown in the clip describing "the first time I was faced with having to help a white farmer save his farm." Sherrod, who is black, claimed the farmer took a long time trying to show he was "superior" to her. The audience laughed as she described how she determined his fate.

"He had to come to me for help. What he didn't know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me was I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him," she said. "I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their farmland and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land -- so I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough."

The Agriculture Department announced Monday, shortly after FoxNews.com published its initial report on the video, that Sherrod had resigned.

"There is zero tolerance for discrimination at USDA, and I strongly condemn any act of discrimination against any person," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a written statement. "We have been working hard through the past 18 months to reverse the checkered civil rights history at the department and take the issue of fairness and equality very seriously.

Sherrod explained in the video that, at the time, she assumed the state or national Department of Agriculture had referred the white farmer to her. In order to ensure that the farmer could report back that she was indeed helpful, she said she took him to see "one of his own" -- a white lawyer.

"I figured that if I take him to one of them, that his own kind would take care of him," she said.

The point of the story wasn't entirely clear; only an excerpt of the speech is included in the video clip.

"It was revealed to me that it's about poor versus those who have," she said, suggesting she had learned that race is less important.

The video clip was first posted by BigGovernment.com. The clip is dated March 27 from an NAACP Freedom Fund banquet.

The clip adds to the firestorm of debate over the NAACP's decision to approve a resolution at its convention last week accusing some Tea Party activists of racism -- a charge Tea Party leaders deny. FoxNews.com was unable to get a response to this story from the NAACP.

In a second clip from the same event posted online, Sherrod appeared to urge black job seekers to find work at the Department of Agriculture because the federal government won't lay people off.

"There are jobs at USDA and many times there are no people of color to fill those jobs because we shy away from agriculture. We hear the word agriculture and think, why are we working in the fields?" she said. "You've heard of a lot of layoffs. Have you heard of anybody in the federal government losing their job? That's all I need to say."

The Video clip from YouTube:

NAACP Bigotry in their ranks

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October 14, 2010...4:48 PM

Obama Wants $1.25 B to Compensate up to 66,000 African American Farmers for USDA Discrimination in 1981-96; Census Says African American Farmers Peaked at 33,000 in Those Years

Jump to Comments

I raise my right hand and swear to redistribute all the money from the makers to give to the takers!

Obama is tied to the Shirley Sherrod/Pigford/black farmer scandal. This is why Sherrod was fired so quickly because the White House thought Glenn Beck was about to expose their scheme. I’ve written about it here, here, here, and here.

This is a redistribution of wealth scam and the U.S. taxpayers are the victims, not these imaginary farmers.
CNSNews.com reports:

President Barack Obama is requesting $1.15 billion from Congress—to add to a $100-million earmark he pushed through Congress in 2008 when he was a senator—to create a $1.25 billion federal fund to settle discrimination claims by what the Justice Department says is 66,000 African Americans who “farmed or attempted to farm” and were allegedly the victims of discrimination committed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) during the period from Jan. 1, 1981 to Dec. 31, 1996.

During that 16-year period, however, the number of African American farm operators in the United States peaked at 33,000 in 1982, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 1992, says the Census Bureau, the number of African American farmers had fallen as low as 19,000. (There were 2.24 million total farmers in the United States in 1982 and 1.93 million in 1992.)

A “farm operator,” according to the Census, is “a person who operates a farm, either doing the work or making day-to-day decisions.” Farm operators include both individuals who own farms and who rent them.

A Department of Justice spokeswoman told CNSNews.com that the $1.15 billion the administration is requesting from Congress to settle what is called the Pigford II case is based on complaints of discrimination from 66,000 individual African American farmers who allege the Department of Agriculture wrongfully denied them federal farm loans or benefits between the beginning of 1981 and the end of 1996.

Back in 1997, lawyers brought a class-action suit, Pigford v. Glickman, against the USDA on behalf of African American farmers who allegedly were discriminated against because of their race when they tried to secure federally-backed farm loans or benefit payments.

On January 5, 1999, a federal court ruled in Pigford that the following group was qualified to apply for federal compensation for discrimination by USDA: “All African American farmers who (1) farmed, or attempted to farm, between January 1, 1981 and December 31, 1996; (2) applied to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) during that time period for participation in a federal farm credit or benefit program and who believed that they were discriminated against on the basis of race in USDA’s response to that application; and (3) filed a discrimination complaint on or before July 1, 1997, regarding USDA’s treatment of such farm credit or benefit application.”

People in this group were given until Oct. 12, 1999 to submit a claim to USDA requesting compensation under the Pigford ruling. The USDA then evaluated these claims to see whether the individual claimants had been treated differently than white farmers. Approximately 20,000 individuals filed claims before the 1999 deadline. Since then, according to news reports, the Agriculture Department has paid about 16,000 of these farmers more than $1 billion in compensation.

In the first eleven months after the Oct. 12, 1999 deadline, however, an additional 61,000 people filed claims seeking compensation under the original Pigford settlement, according to a second Pigford settlement approved by a federal district court in February 2010.

About 2,700 of these 61,000 were deemed to have satisfied an “extraordinary circumstances” test and were permitted to participate in the original claim resolution processes despite missing the deadline.

Ultimately, a Justice Department spokeswoman told CNSNews.com, a total of 66,000 individual African American farmers came forward after the original 1999 Pigford deadline seeking to make a claim against the U.S. Department Agriculture for discriminating against them on the basis of race in the period of 1981 through 1996.

Counting the original 20,000 who met the 1999 deadline and the 66,000 who did not, there are a total of 86,000 African Americans who “farmed or attempted to farm” from 1981 through 1996 who have made or are now seeking to make a claim of discrimination against the U.S. government. Yet, the alleged discrimination against these 86,000 African American farmers occurred during a period when the peak African American farm-operator population was 33,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) pushed to get $100 million appropriated through that year’s farm bill to compensate African American farmers who alleged discrimination by USDA during the 1981-1996 period and had missed the 1999 filing deadline under the original Pigford case. “I am also pleased that the bill includes my proposal to help thousands of African-American farmers get their discrimination claims reviewed under the Pigford settlement,” Sen. Obama said in a May 15, 2008 statement on his web site after the passage of the bill.
Obama introduced his proposal as the “Pigford Claims Remedy Act of 2007” and it was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

On June 5, 2008, Congress passed the final version of the farm bill containing Obama’s Pigford proposal. The “Determination on Merits of Pigford Claims” section of that bill says: “Any Pigford claimant who has not previously obtained a determination on the merits of a Pigford claim may, in a civil action brought in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, obtain that determination.”

In his fiscal 2010 and 2011 budget requests, President Barack Obama asked Congress to approve an additional $1.15 billion to resolve the Pigford claims. So far, Congress has not approved this money. Were it to do so, the administration would have a total of $1.25 billion in tax dollars to hand out to as many as 66,000 African American farmers who claimed that the USDA discriminated against them in 1981-1996 and who were not among the 20,000 who already made claims of discrimination in that period.

[Malsua]

Is this one going to be called the War of Eastern Aggression?

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Senate approves $4.6 Billion for black farmers, Indians

Nov 20, 1:47 AM (ET)

By MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate has approved almost $4.6 billion to settle long-standing claims brought by American Indians and black farmers against the government.

The money has been held up for months in the Senate as Democrats and Republicans squabbled over how to pay for it. The two class action lawsuits were filed over a decade ago.

The settlements include almost $1.2 billion for black farmers who say they suffered discrimination at the hands of the Agriculture Department. Also, $3.4 billion would go to Indian landowners who claim they were swindled out of royalties by the Interior Department. The legislation was approved in the Senate by voice vote Friday and sent to the House.

President Obama in a statement praised the Senate for passing the bill and urged the House to move forward on it. He said his administration is also working to resolve separate lawsuits filed against USDA by Hispanic and women farmers.

"While these legislative achievements reflect important progress, they also serve to remind us that much work remains to be done," he said.

Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe from Browning, Mont. and the lead plaintiff in the Indian case, said Friday that it took her breath away when she found out the Senate had passed the bill. She said was feeling despondent after the chamber had tried and failed to pass the legislation many times. Two people who would have been beneficiaries had died on her reservation this week.

"It's 17 below and the Blackfeet nation is feeling warm," she said. "I don't know if people understand or believe the agony you go through when one of the beneficiaries passes away without justice."

John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association, said the passage of the black farmers' money is also long overdue. "Twenty-six years justice is in sight for our nation's black farmers," he said.

Lawmakers from both parties have said they support resolving the long-standing claims of discrimination and mistreatment by federal agencies. But the funding has been caught up in a fight over spending and deficits. Republicans repeatedly objected to the settlements when they were added on to larger pieces of legislation. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., satisfied conservative complaints by finding spending offsets to cover the cost.

The legislation also includes a one-year extension of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which gives grants to states to provide cash assistance and other services to the poor, and several American Indian water rights settlements in Arizona, Montana and New Mexico sought by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

In the Indian case, at least 300,000 Native Americans claim they were swindled out of royalties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887 for things like oil, gas, grazing and timber. The plaintiffs would share the settlement.

The Cobell lawsuit has dragged on for almost 15 years, with one judge in 2008 comparing it to the Charles Dickens'"Bleak House," which chronicles a never-ending legal suit. Using passages from that novel, U.S. District Judge James Robertson noted that the "suit has, in course of time, become so complicated" that "no two lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises."

The Indian plaintiffs originally said they were owed $100 billion, but signaled they were willing to settle for less as the trial wore on. After more than 3,600 court filings and 80 court decisions, the two sides finally reached a settlement in December.

"Personally I still think we're owed a hundred billion dollars, but how long do you drag this thing out?" Cobell said Friday. "Do you drag it out until every beneficiary is dead? You just can't do that."

Cobell said she feels confident about passage in the House, where the two settlements already have passed twice as part of larger pieces of legislation.

For the black farmers, it is the second round of funding from a class-action lawsuit originally settled in 1999 over allegations of widespread discrimination by local Agriculture Department offices in awarding loans and other aid. It is known as the Pigford case, named after Timothy Pigford, a black farmer from North Carolina who was an original plaintiff.

The government already has paid out more than $1 billion to about 16,000 farmers, with most getting payments of about $50,000. The new money is intended for people - some estimates say 70,000 or 80,000 - who were denied earlier payments because they missed deadlines for filing. The amount of money each would get depends on how many claims are successfully filed.

The bill passed Friday would be partially paid for by diverting dollars from a surplus in nutrition programs for women and children and by extending customs user fees.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said with the passage of the Cobell settlement: "This is a day that will be etched in our memories and our history books."

The Obama administration has aggressively moved to resolve the discrimination cases after most of them have lingered a decade or more in the courts. Last month, the Agriculture Department offered American Indian farmers who say they were denied farm loans a $680 million settlement.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said passage "marks a major milestone in USDA's efforts to turn the page on a sad chapter in our history."

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Reparations begin

Posted 12/07/2010 07:00 PM ET

Redress: Congress has OK'd nearly $5 billion for black and Native American farmers who claim they were discriminated against. This is redistribution of wealth in the name of environmental and social justice. Reparations have begun.

Redistribution of wealth has been an underlying purpose of this administration and Congress, and one of the most glaring examples has been its welcoming of a series of lawsuits alleging past discrimination by black, Native American, Hispanic and female farmers.

Pigford v. Glickman was a class action lawsuit against the Department of Agriculture alleging discrimination against black farmers in its allocation of farm loans between 1983 and 1987. With all our other economic difficulties, it has flown under the media radar. A separate suit filed by 300,000 American Indians claimed they had been cheated out of land royalties dating back to 1887.

One of the fruits of this lame-duck session has been the approval of $1.15 billion to the black farmers and $3.4 billion to the American Indians to settle the two lawsuits. At last count, more than 94,000 black farmers have signed up for payments under the settlement.

Based on census data, however, there were only 33,000 or so black farmers in existence during the period in question. Based on that number and the number of denied applications, the department had originally estimated that only 2,000 such claims would be filed.

This is what happens when government rings the dinner bell, and it's an indication of just how loose the rules are for vetting past injustices, real or not. Throw in the cult of victimology permeating modern liberalism and you have a cash cow ready to be milked. Victims will come out of the woodwork.

As BigGovernment.com reports, the only "proof" required was a form stating that the claimant had "attempted" to farm, perhaps planting tomatoes in the back yard, and to have a family member vouch for that assertion. The government would then send the aggrieved "farmer" a check for $50,000. The bill is headed to President Obama's desk for his signature Wednesday or Thursday. It was then-Sen. Obama who introduced the original Pigford legislation in 2007.

Saying "the numbers just don't add up," Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., has called for a federal investigation. "Pigford is rife with fraudulent claims," she believes, "and to settle before an investigation can take place does the American taxpayer a disservice." Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, has been less subtle, calling them "slavery reparations."

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Thousands of Black Farmers File Claims in USDA Discrimination Settlement

By ADRIAN SAINZ, Associated Press
March 28, 2012



TO MOVE AT 3AM WEDNESDAY MARCH 28, 2012 -- In a Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 photo, lawyer Rose Sanders, right, helps a family fill out a claim application related to a settlement in a lawsuit between black farmers and the Agriculture Department in Memphis, Tenn. Black farmers had sued the department, claiming discrimination in USDA loan application from 1981 to 1996. (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — When Roy James needed money to buy equipment and dig an irrigation well for his father's Mississippi farm, he applied for a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture — but was turned down.

The USDA said it denied the application filed in 1995 because James had inadequate education and didn't have farming experience — even though he had a college degree and had worked for years on the farm that grows soybean, wheat and cotton.

"I couldn't understand why they turned me down," James said. "It was confusing."

He became more frustrated when he found out he missed a deadline to take part in a settlement reached by black farmers with the USDA over discrimination claims. The 1999 settlement of the Pigford v. Glickman lawsuit provided about $1 billion to 15,000 farmers who say the agency unfairly turned them down for loans because of their race between 1981 and 1996.

James said he missed the deadline because he did not find out in time, but he still filed a late claim. Thousands of other black farmers did the same — a move that may result in a payout, after all.

A second settlement approved by a court in October 2011 is giving another chance to black farmers with discrimination claims from that era who were left out of the first Pigford settlement. Farmers who filed a late claim for the first settlement — or their relatives — have until May 11 to file a new claim for thousands of dollars.

Lawyers involved in the case believe that 40,000 to 65,000 black farmers are eligible to claim about $1.2 billion under a bill signed by President Barack Obama.

Thousands have already filed claims, and advocates say payouts could be as high as $250,000 in some cases. Factors that determine how much each claimant gets include the level of damages and losses they experienced, and, because there is a limited pool of money available, how many farmers end up applying.

A panel of people who are not part of the lawsuit or the USDA will decide if claimants are eligible.

The Pigford settlements are viewed as a victory by many. But one group that advocates for black farmers says they are a figurative slap in the face because they don't cover a long enough time period and claimants give up the right to appeal if they are denied.

LaSalle Dudley, 72, filed a claim on behalf of his deceased older sister and her husband, who were denied a loan in the early 1980s for their cotton farm near Senatobia, Miss. The loan was intended to buy machinery so Dudley's brother-in-law could give up manual farming and expand the business. Instead, because the loan was denied, they were unable to produce enough crops and had to close the farm.

Dudley said he hopes to get about $35,000 and would share any money with his brother. He said the claim is a good way to honor his sister.

"They owned the property for so long, and really I would have loved for it to have remained in the family," Dudley said. "I would tell people not to be ashamed or fearful coming forward with what they know happened."

Black farmers were prominent in the 1920s, when they owned 15 million acres of farmland, said John Zippert, director of program operations for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives.

But as years passed and they sought loans to maintain or expand their businesses, many faced adversity. Black farmers seeking loans from the USDA were often turned down for no explicit reason or were approved for much lower sums than they needed. As a result, they had to reduce the size of their farms or sell their properties.

"The USDA presented itself as the lenders of last resort, but in terms of black farmers, they didn't fulfill that promise in many cases," Zippert said. "Many small black farmers because they couldn't get access to USDA credit and other support, had to go out of the farming business."

Today, black farmers own between 3 and 4 million acres of U.S. farmland, according to Zippert, whose organization represented farmers in the Pigford settlements. Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina have the highest numbers of black-owned farms, Zippert said.

As properties have gotten smaller, many black farmers have abandoned traditional row crops such as corn, cotton and wheat. Now, many are growing fruits like watermelon and mangoes and vegetables such as peas and okra because they carry a higher income per acre, Zippert said.

To be eligible for money under the recent settlement, a black farmer needs to have sought a loan for his farm between 1981 and 1996. They also must have registered a written or verbal complaint about any discriminatory treatment they experienced.

Also, applicants must be farmers who missed the initial Sept. 15, 2000 deadline and filed a late claim for the first settlement. Zippert said that many did not receive adequate notice of their eligibility.

In cases where eligible farmers have died, their heirs can make claims. In all, about 65,000 black farmers submitted a late claim for the original Pigford settlement, Zippert said.

"It's not a general re-opening of the case, and that's caused some confusion," Zippert said. "You have people who think that because their parents farmed in the 1940s ... that they are eligible for this, and they aren't."

More than 20 firms are helping farmers file for the new settlement, said Greg Francis, an Orlando, Fla. lawyer. He's placed ads in newspapers, magazines and on the Internet seeking potential claimants.

Francis said his law firm called Morgan & Morgan does not charge those who file a claim. Lawyers' fees are paid by the court.

"No potential claimant should be paying anyone either for a claim form or for assistance in filling out a claims form," Francis said.

Thomas Burrell, president of the Memphis-based Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, argues that money should be available to any black farmer with a legitimate claim of discrimination, not just the late applicants from the original Pigford settlement.

Burrell also said it is unfair because it requires black farmers to forever waive their right to appeal if they are not approved.

"The process has never been meaningful, it has never been adequate," Burrell said.