Blacks who were turned down for farm loans in the United
States have been given a second chance to claim a share of $1.2 billion.
President Barack Obama has signed his approval for
legislation to give the blacks a second chance to file a claim if they were
turned down for a government loan between 1981 and 1996.
There was an initial settlement more than a decade ago following
a court decision on a class-action lawsuit.
The original deadline to file an application was September
15, 2000, but it has become clear that many of those who would have been
eligible didn’t know about the money they could claim.
The new deadline is May 10 this year. Estates are also
eligible to apply. Some claims have been as high as $250,000.
In an article about the settlement, Associated Press cites
the case of Ray James of Mississippi whose application was turned down for lack
of education, yet he had spent years working on farms and has a college degree.
I'm in South Carolina right now, right where black farmers have struggled to buy land and develop farms. These are descendants of slaves who did the work that made Southern gentry among the richest in the world.
I have been reading about plantation owners here who had 1,000 and more slaves to produce rice, indigo and cotton. They built mansions that were the most expensive in the world, and hosted royalty from England and France.
Prejudice continues to this day. On Sundays here, churches are filled either with nothing but blacks or nothing but white people. And this is where some of the loan denials took place.
