Rallying to Support the Black Farmers!!!!

Please join us (Sunday September 19 2010 at 2:00 PM EST) for an in-depth interview with Robert Binion as we discuss the ongoing battle of Black Farmers seeking justice, in the face of discrimination, from the USDA. Farmers from Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and elsewhere in the South will be coming to Washington next week to shine a spotlight on the refusal of the Senate to approve $1.25 billion in funding for the Black farmers' anti-discrimination lawsuit against the USDA, funds promised in February by the Obama administration and passed by the House in May. Black farmers have been denied loans and participation in other government programs for decades by the USDA and many have lost their land and been forced out of farming as a result. They won a class-action lawsuit in 1999 (Pigford v. Glickman) upholding their claims of discrimination. Today, they are fighting for additional funds in order to compensate thousands of farmers who were unjustly excluded from the first settlement. Robert Binion, 56, is a peach farmer from Clanton, Alabama, 40 miles south of Birmingham. A former president of the NAACP in his area, he has been a long-time civil rights activist. He is interim president of the Southern Black Farmers Association and has been a leader in Alabama of the Black farmers' long-standing fight against discrimination by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). EVERYONE IS INVITED TO A RALLY IN SUPPORT ON THE FARMERS ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 12 NOON, ON THE MALL SIDE OF THE USDA BUILDING, 1400 INDEPENDENCE AVENUE.