Bennie Thompson

Mr. THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to acknowledge the positive efforts of the New Hope Foundation, Inc. in Jackson, MS. New Hope was established in 1981 as a nonprofit organization to provide community- based alcohol and other drug abuse correction services to individuals, regardless of race, sex, religion, or national origin. New Hope's mission is to prevent, treat, and educate individuals living in low and moderate income communities about alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse. Some of New Hope's programs include a Three Quarter-way House for males. This program is a secondary alcohol and drug treatment program for recovering chemically dependent persons. In this program, individuals are given an opportunity to improve their lives by participating in vocational and employment activities. New Hope also conducts several other programs such as support groups that help aid in temporary and permanent housing, medical assistance, achieving a Graduate Equivalency Diploma (GED), aid to the homeless and many other worthwhile benefits for men subjected and victimized by the ills of society. It is refreshing to know that organizations such as New Hope are created to help people who are not able to help themselves. Mr. Speaker, I salute The New Hope Foundation. We can learn a lot from their determination and their commitment to assisting the less fortunate. I congratulate New Hope on their accomplishments and I encourage them in their quest to empowering a part of America that is almost too often neglected.

Mr. THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Ms. Eunice Gentry on obtaining the title of Miss Jackson State University 1997-98. Ms. Gentry is a native of Jackson, MS. She is a senior communications major and the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Roosevelt Gentry. Ms. Gentry is very active in numerous organizations at Jackson State University (JSU). Such organizations include the Mass Communications Club, JSU Student Government Association, Tiger Pride Connection, and the JSU chapter of the NAACP. Among some of Ms. Gentry's accomplishments include her position as parliamentarian for the student chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, a $3,000 scholarship earned in a national essay competition sponsored by the National Black Programmers Coalition of Atlanta, and her membership to the W.E.B. DuBois Honors College. Over her summer break, Ms. Gentry worked as an intern for television station KVBC, the NBC affiliate in Las Vegas, NV. Mr. Speaker, it is with the utmost pride that I stand here before you today and acknowledge Ms. Eunice Gentry, Miss Jackson State University 1997-98.

Mr. THOMPSON

Mr. THOMPSON. Many of our farmers have gone through bankruptcy, have gone through some real health problems. Now for our government to say to them, if you seek relief you now have to go hire a lawyer to fight the government, the notion that our Civil Rights Division in the United States Department of Justice cannot take this on as an issue and say look, I understand the ruling, but it is not right because you have in effect denied certain liberties of people in this country who should have had their concerns addressed. So why should we require people who now have been dealing with the lender of last resort to make crops come now and hire lawyers to fight the government again?

Mr. THOMPSON. Will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. THOMPSON. Your comments, I would say to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Hilliard), go clearly and factually to the notion that there just might be a conspiracy which our government is participating in to do away with African-American farmers in this country. If I had to look at the facts in this situation, I believe they are irrefutable.

Mr. THOMPSON. Well, can the gentleman, for the viewing public, explain the statute of limitations and the government not doing its job in conducting an investigation and telling that farmer that either your complaint has validity or it does not? But the fact that our government did nothing in the administrative conduct of hearing and now falls behind a statute of limitations issue, to me it is a false notion.

Mr. THOMPSON. If the gentlewoman will yield, the problem I have is, given the visibility of this issue, why can people of good will not come together and craft a response to this dilemma, rather than put blocks up to prevent solutions from happening?

Mr. THOMPSON. Now they say it is too late. We waited too long in the deception. I am sorry. You have to take your complaint elsewhere.

Mr. THOMPSON. If the gentleman will yield, let me share one point. On our stationery from the Department of Agriculture it says that if you feel that you have been discriminated against, you may file a complaint with the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. Our investigation found out that this department had been disbanded in 1983.

Mr. THOMPSON. Well, Madam Chairman, the notion of the statute of limitation in effect says that if you filed a discrimination complaint against the Department of Agriculture before 1994, then in effect you have lost your right to complain, because our government did not perform its required duties within the period of time that the law required. Therefore, as a person complaining, you have now lost your right to any redress or any monetary reward for having a legitimate complaint. It is inconceivable that an agency charged with the responsibility of conducting an investigation now jumps behind the statute of limitation veil by saying, look, we did not do our job; now, I am sorry, we cannot do anything for you. I refuse to believe that in this country, when the government clearly is at fault, that we cannot find some remedy for our taxpaying citizens who have been aggrieved by this government.

Mr. THOMPSON. Let me tell you, this gentleman received a 1099 for $523,000.

Mr. THOMPSON. That is absolutely correct and the fact that to my knowledge no one disputed the findings of the report. It was a very thorough report, but also it really crystallized the problems that small and minority farmers have. The most egregious situation with the report, Madam Speaker, is the fact that one farmer in the report has been trying for 20 years to get his claims settled, and I want to enter into the record a copy of a letter dated February 17 from Mr. Gary R. Grant from Tillery, North Carolina, and he is yet to get his problem settled that was documented in the Civil Rights Action Team Report as something that they should, in fact, settle.

Mr. THOMPSON. Absolutely correct. The most astounding thing associated with your comments is that the Department of Agriculture agreed that in effect they had discriminated against African-American and other small farmers, put it in writing and ultimately said we are going to do better. The Civil Rights Action Team Report, which was produced in January of last year, documented it. We talked about over 1500 complaints from farmers all over the country having been mistreated by our government, documented by our government, now all of a sudden here we are over 1 year later and we are still dealing with the same problem.

Mr. THOMPSON. You are absolutely correct. The other problem associated with the timing is how our farmers put their applications for support into the United States Department of Agriculture. And if they are late in putting the applications in or if there are complaints outstanding, then they are prohibited from putting applications in for operating loans for their farms.

Mr. THOMPSON. I would say that Secretary Glickman had the novel idea that, now that we have the problems documented, we can move and solve them right away.

Mr. THOMPSON. Madam Speaker, to the question of fundamental fairness, I am convinced that if this proposition is put before this body, that if, in fact, the record says that these individuals have, in fact, been aggrieved by an Agency of the United States Government, and we cannot provide relief to them because of a little something called the statute of limitations, and we have provided relief in other situations for other individuals. I look at this as a similar position. Farmers have been done wrong. We have documented the wrongdoings of the Department of Agriculture. The Secretary of Agriculture would like to resolve the problems. Now, another branch of government decides that they know more about agriculture than the Department of Agriculture and they will become, if we please, ``the new plantation'' which is about the business of making black farmers extinct in this country. So in the interest of fairness, we can resolve it, Madam Speaker, but it will take people of goodwill, as I said earlier, sitting down, reviewing the facts. And the record is clear. Mr. Eddie Ross' case was 7,500 pages long. One little small farmer who was renting land to farm. And here we have wasted thousands of dollars before we came to a partial settlement in his case. Let us cut the red tape. Let us quit spending money. Let us put our lawyers to work to fighting the druggies and folk who bring in drugs in this country. We should not be fighting hard-working farmers in this country with our tax dollars. Let us fight crime. Let us fight the problems that tear communities down. Let us not fight the people who work by the sweat of their brow trying to make something out of this country that we call America.

Mr. THOMPSON. If the gentlewoman will yield one last time, one of the things perhaps tomorrow night we can talk about, in addition to expanding more on this issue, is the notion that the settlement would adversely impact the budget. The gentlewoman from North Carolina and I are on the Committee on the Budget, but the reality is we already have monies set aside to settle the notion. So if there are any people wondering, saying if we settle all those cases, what will it do to the budget? Zero. Because we have a judgment fund created within our government to handle situations like this when we do wrong. So, clearly, we will expand a little more tomorrow night on it, but just the notion that if relief is to come, who will write the check. Gladly, somebody had the foresight to know that we are not perfect, so we have a judgment fund available to us that clearly has money in it and we can resolve these issues and get on with the business of running the government.

Mr. THOMPSON. Madam Speaker, the systemic problem within that agency is so deep, the good old boy network.

Mr. THOMPSON. Oh, absolutely. And the civil rights action team report documents all the wrongs.

Mr. THOMPSON. Well, Madam Speaker, what happened, they told the people that processed the check, but then they did not go back and tell them but we are not going to mail it, do not send the statement out, because if you do, you let the cat out of the bag. So what happened when Mr. Ross got the 1099, it was obvious that they were moving so fast to cover their tracks that they missed one scenario to cover it. And that was the issuance of the 1099. And that is what brought all of this to light. So, to the Grant family and the public, we want them to understand that we are still having a difficult time getting our government to be sensitive to the problems that our farmers are having. We should not have to fight our government to make it right.

Mr. THOMPSON. That is right.

Mr. THOMPSON. That is right.

Mr. THOMPSON. You are absolutely correct.

Mr. THOMPSON. That is right.

Mr. THOMPSON. So even though you sign the settlement agreement, the ink is dry, it is not over until the check is received.