USDA Will Compensate Black Farmers for Discrimination
The United States Department of Agriculture will pay a historic $2.2 billion to Black farmers as compensation for decades of discrimination in lending. The National Black Farmers Association helped secure the compensation after years of lawsuits and other actions. Approximately 43,000 Black farmers are expected to receive settlements, some of up to half a million dollars each.
John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about systemic discrimination against Black farmers and what else is needed from the federal government.
Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx talk of the same name.
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