This is his father's great site. You see all the flowers on here the they ve been here since fathers Day, Patterson Holy Spirit We made our father worked in Heaven. How will it be thy me thy kingdom come? I will be done on earth as cities in heavy give us stay ideally read such as well. Forgive those who trespass against us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, amen, Hail, Mary full of grace. The Lord is with me when we bear in my day you know when p,

was trying to console me the first thing he was saving. Look, what he's berries he's buried right next to the key, so much love and in in really made me feel feel good At a time you know made me feel better, I guess I can see, but. After all, it is happening, stop coming even see my daggers. I just couldn't just you know. I just wanted to make him proud And when all I'd have felt like, I was let my dear down just No, he wanted to pass the form down to his keys and his green cares and in. Now led him down. You didn't let your dad down. You know that

For many a time magazine, for him a Jones. This is sixteen nineteen, so after this terrible year. Did you think about giving up the business? Oh never never, I mean I'm a sugar cane former I'm in I mean I loved it. This is my family's legacy. This is I'm good at I've been doing. Since I was a little boy I mean never once without ever give up forming

these are eager. Why don't you pick up where you left off The June and Andrew protests have been struggling for years to keep their sugar cane farm going. It was repetitive cycle. Pretty much, I mean late loans, under funded we're collateral zation and they say it's because They can't get enough money from their bank called first guarantee to run their farm is a trickle down, effect You can't plan all of your acres that one year, you're gonna, feel the next year and the year after that, if you can fertilized your whole prob kind of yields. Are you gonna make on that acres and he can't just go to another bank to get the loan because he says. Other banks have told him that he's into deep, with first guarantee he's put up pretty much all of his assets as.

Admiral! So what what am I supposed to do? So? I did go to the the in an action to apply some pressure. I need my problem needs to be in the fields and so June turns to the federal government to complaint. Basically, when a farmer goes to a bank to apply for a crop loan, the bank then and to a local branch of the. U S, department of Agriculture, because even though the loan is provided by the bank. The? U S they will step in in the event that the farmer, pay back the loan. So the local, the aid office has to sign off on it. When June goes to his local USDA office. They say: there's nothing they can do, It was almost every year every year I would have the complaint is every year. The problems would be later in later and and on this one day in May of twenty fourteen, that's when everything

came to a head. Everything came to hidden two thousand fourteen June. Finally, started to get some answers were always at the shop work, just trying to get equipment ready. China set up everything for further lie season, for when I get the crop loan, you know everything would be ready to go and I gotta call in it was a? U s: DA's number: he gets a call from a local USDA Employ named William husband. He said Julia said you have a second, I'm say like shortens the will. What is wrong he's? Do you realize that you're, the only former in this pair in this office s goin through what are you going we see? No other former is going through this well

Husband is named as a whistle blower in June, lawsuit against First Guarantee Bank and the lawsuit claims. The husband who was white made it clear that this was about racial discrimination. When we reached out to husband, he couldn't comment furnace back to the USDA where he still works, but this is what June and Angie say happened: easy come to my office from is, as you can at one point after that phone call William invited June and Anti to come to his office. I can remember that William looking quite dishevel yeah, he was nervous Henriette. I remember that where he showed them June's files, you see. I want you to sit in my office, I'm gonna was a door and he had all the files are ready on his desk from every year. He say I want you to go to all of your falls in pull out what you need to pull out in I'll make copies for you and

who says that what he saw those files clarified for him? What had been going on with this crop loans? Do you realize that first guarantee bankers, photocopying your signatures and I'm late say that again he said yes, you say: First Guarantee Bank is photocopying. Your signature send. This is too USDA guaranteed loan application, and not only for our common our signatures. They were changing the loan amongst the lawsuit claims that first guarantee Bank had been changing. June's loan applications. Out his consent, reducing the amount he's asking for leaving him with less money to run as far as you like, shaken see I'm shaking ass. I have seen as usual unshaken see. I see. Mr I'm shaken? This is like crazy

I mean for me it was just like a shock, but I mean was a surprise. It almost gave if it came to the feelings that we had all that he heard. I think that it would be a pretty much answered my question, my questions and his sight. Here's the proof you know so yeah. So what is it An explanation for why it had landed June so much less than what he had asked for. First guarantee Bank would not speak with us, in a statement that they made to the guardian last year. They called these allegations quote completely unfounded and frivolous and said that it quote, has not and does not engage in discriminatory practices. The year after William Husband, first told June and Angie about the discrimination first Guarantee Bank denies Juno Crop Lung altogether,

without the funds they couldn't afford to do anything on a limited number of acres, he had left couldn't pay the landlords he rented from so we had to give it up. He lost, land. His grandfather had farmed. He lost land he learned to drive a tractor on and he lost. Patch of land of highway. Ninety words and his father had opened, rose and covered Kane for the last time and in twenty eighteen, the bank for closed on their home. As far as the home tomorrow, Amira areas, she may be fifty yards away from my mom's home. I mean

and that's the reason why I build their second take care of my parents, to have my own taken like that is just its unreal. I mean it doesn't make any sense. You know it really. I walk out of my mom's house and I have to look at our home. You know it's not like where I live a few miles away and you know you barely pass by it. I get up every single morning and the first thing I see as my home in all the home of September of last year. They have yet to cut the grass it is like falling down? I mean is just is just so. I gotta relieved that everyday reality. Every single day, and I tell you what I wouldn't we stand on anybody it's you know.

So you know those those are things that that's you know that is so hard to tee so hard. No sugar industry, all we see, we need young farmers, we need young farmers and what they should be sandy. What young white foreigners. So how do we know that the bank was unjustified in this assessment? Well, we don't know this is an active litigation which is in the discovery. Phase basically where both sides are gathering evidence obtaining documents. He wouldn't witnesses and taking depositions

and what we know is what June told us and what the bank has denied. But we also know that this is the first time that a black farmer the accused a lending institution of using a crop alone as a tool of discrimination. In fact, it's the allegation at the heart of the largest civil rights settlement in the history of country to kill a mocking bird is the most successful american play in Broadway. History says sixty minutes rolling, down gives a five stars, calling it a landmark production of an american classic to kill a mocking is all rise, one of the greatest plays in history, raves them pr the new posts will change how you see the world. This is what great feeders for all rise for her.

These to kill a mocking bird, a new play by Aaron Sorkin. This is a phenomenon says New York magazine on Broadway at the Schubert Theatre get tickets. I tell a charge shot come very moment that I omit introduce them Coolio article their name Coolio Dhahran, Mohammed Gibran,. College about Mohammed you're. Has you, professor at Harvard tell me about this law suit that led to the largest civil rights settlement in history? Well, it's pretty remarkable one day in the late nineteenth nineties, amending Timothy, see Pickford and a couple of other farmers. Black farmers walk into a lawyers office in DC. Would you entered yourself to me and pronounce your name, please sure my name is Alexander Piracies PR, yes,

doesnt really rhyme with anything hooker. And could you taught this man named Alex pirates who had been doing the USDA for various reasons and they told him their story. They told me the story, which was very simple, which was we're very good farmers and we can't get loans and. The powder and Mr Perry's in the pattern. Is We do get alone. We get a lesser amount than a white. Do get alone. It's got more restrictions than a white. We do get alone. We get it laid in the season. Why time is getting on time if we do get it and get something. During the next year. They have promised to keep us when building momentum- and I told them that my experience had banned at nobody's gonna listen to unless we have numbers

numbers is what they get, and I told him if you could go out and get me fifty black farmers who could tell that same story. I'll follow class action on behalf of you, but what happened was they came back with? I think sixteen seventy names and addresses go on the road and see how widespread it is

upon a form, a bad fall, so it s in my blood. I guess we want on a tour hidden. Fifty five toward the south, sixty seven pages of a contract purchased a layer of the family for such a long term plan for this line I didn't get just given even run around. They tell me how to ride, to discourage need everyone, passive messages on my ass. She never here and we were successful when I got whatever it was. A hundred and something names are forced out, Barbie, that's what we love to do. I came back. The complaint and we ve Did we Judge named, Judge Friedmann and that's how it started. That's how Pickford and these other farmers came to sue the United States. Department of agriculture fell

Ass, his lawyers investigating these farmers stories. What is he learning will is learning that the process itself is troubling because the way that crop loans are distributed, even though the money comes from Congress, all of the action happens at local level and in agriculture, the really local level I mean county by county perished by perish. If you in a place like Louisiana, the history had been something like this black farmers got really good at specific crops year after year after year, they would form the same crops for white And owners- and they got really good at it. So it's just a matter of time. Or a younger black farmer would say to himself what am I doing. Do the same thing over and over again the way farmer gets rich on my skill. When I just go down the street and lease a hundred Two hundred acres endure for myself

little very american, very logical. The problem was that was frightening to the white farmers in the south for three reasons one there goes. My labor and my skill to here comes a new competitor and three. What about me? they. You know what about me, what about my rights, my interests, I'm gonna talk to the kind of committee about the story. Pickford, and these claimants is that at the time when they try to get alone, they would go to a USDA local, The committee and apply the system is a very simple there's, a local county committee. The county committee decides who gets the funds.

And he was completely why control these committees are overwhelmingly, why even in southern states that had lots of black farmers and what happened is that ultimately, the people making decision about giving the low were discriminating, because in many instances they knew the farm landowner from whom this person was breaking away. Five people in there in line the first for a widely for his whack I'll tell you what's gonna happen. Ninety percent of the time, the person whose vote from the county community knows the first floor. They fish together, they hunt together there never gonna vote against them, number five, is the black man from the black community ports, which there is oh relationship usually, and it's a wild caught as too their he's going to get that long. So these farmers are clear, meaning that there being discriminated against because their black and the MECCA

some of that discrimination. Are these farm loans? That's right through the size of the loan and the release of the funds it started out with it. Simple complaint, on which everybody was saying: the same thing that there is. Treatment by whites, and then common element was when they complained about it to the office of civil rights. Which is how the system works. Their complaint never get processed. In fact, Alex tells us there, when he started doing his own research into this. He found that going back to the nineteen Eightys, the Reagan administration, closed, the USDA Office of civil rights, and so complaints were pouring in going back. That far but there was no office to process them, and I had heard a rumour from a couple of black farmers that. The room, you know where they just stuff them all they're afraid to destroy them. So we.

In reviewing wanted one of the deputy secretaries- and they said you know, did you guys take all those complaints. You know when you close the civil rights of Adele certain somewhere. Where are they in destroy him? To do. They were where is it all In very nicely he said: get me in trouble. Don't you know were I make living? You know how this The officers were all locked up in their filled, and I said I don't you go down there and I need you get you in trouble on that one of those people I believe We sit in this building and Basically, I got a nod from him, and then it was a hero. The two waiting on what I said, you know your honor. I want to pursue this because I believe that they ve got boxes in boxes. They never process which would be great presented

you at the beginning of trial. Over of you want to do it in Deb, they never denied ever, but I don't think they needed to go there, I think they knew that we knew They knew we knew, and I think TAT made the difference so is so given that you did not see the files. How are you able to build this into an argument with Judge Friedman that this was the smoking gun? Essentially of like farmers case it was one of the smoking guns yeah I'm. I think he believed that if they didn't have an office of civil rights, did it really matter with you with the files they suddenly word processing em right! That's what made the case unique! It's really too forms a bias and prejudice. First of all, you

SK emanated against and then, when you complain, you're a complaint? Is that process? That's another form of discrimination it through the double They judge very early on, got it. Did the pattern would do. We would tell the black community when the hearings were, and they were oh come to Washington, I don't mean twenty or thirty. Fifty of them I mean hundreds and hundreds of them would come so you have three four five hundred black farmers in the courtroom. We had them in the aisles and fraud? and then there's side seats? We had them in the jury box. And I think it bothered Judge Friedman, did it come down to this? that I judicial system was not working well and he was going to do

think about it, and so two years after Timothy Pickford and that group of farmers first came into his office, Alex gets call. One day I got a phone call from a senior associate change, the departure of justice ready to negotiate and my requirement was that they actually give real money, not credit, not maybe not promises, so the here they basically hammer out is that each farmer who meets the requirements of the complaint is able to receive fifty thousand dollars. I asked for fifty thousand dollars per black farmer tax free and have them et forgiven I'll tell you, the government in the initial decision since we're having a heart attack over it. You would think. I was reading the Treasury. It was the closest I could get to the government to say I'm sorry

with something meaningful, but it's not a perfect world. I I felt like fifty thousand dollars was respectful. Is it was it perfectly and no? No.

I mean when I think of fifty thousand dollars. It doesnt seem to repair much right like that's, not gonna buy back the man that you lost. It's not gonna put you in a position to be in place it you would have been if you had been treated the same as white farmers, I mean it's clearly better than nothing, but it doesnt repair the damage know it's true. I mean a lot of these. People had been experiencing generations of discrimination by these local USDA committees, but maybe the loudest criticisms came from people who thought the entire thing was a big shake down of the federal government that this was all reparation. Scam and white people in the federal government did know these folks anything that the complainants were frauds

that they were making this up, that they were terrible horrible farmers who were masking these complaints of racism to high their own incompetence as farmers? In my answer to that always was vacant, the farming in the south for years really think picks: cotton, white people. What a coincidence that the black farmer is qualified to farm millions of acres in America and make White America rich. But when you want to do it on his own he's, not competent black farmers were doing the farming. They were doing the actual work. So, even though the government did not publicly admit.

On doing it ended up paying out nearly a billion dollars to nearly sixteen thousand farmers, the largest amount of money. The government has ever pay to settle a discrimination case, but it still an unresolved issue. More black farmers came forward who met the conditions of the original complaint and form pick for two, and ultimately, the underlying problem of discrimination remains. There are people who gonna listen to this negative so admirably that story and my answer to sister. That is, while you live in the south and you're on a farmer- and you don't have to then how the system works. The way you love. You know you're, probably listening to this in in the suburbs of but I fear you live in Brooklyn or something and your life is totally different, but that's how it works. That's how it worked for decades

and the black farmer was abused in a way that was unheard of, and the preliminary culprit was his own government, her own government. So, for example, you Sent me a case involving a sugar matter down south and the case of June and Anti provost yeah I mean I read it because the same story involves a bank and most of ours in a didn't, but the points the same. What's the difference between that story and thousands of Pickford stories with Since the fact pattern is very some more very qualified, a farmer who, everything there is to know about sugar, can't get a Cancun alone

so collegial. I know you ve reporting on June and Anti promised as well, and their story is so similar to the stories of the farmers in the pig for law suit, which was settled almost twenty years ago. So how much has actually changed for by farmers in this country? well. The one thing we know about american history is that two steps forward are often met with one step back or sometimes two or three steps back. We just look at black sugar cane farmers in the way the Anna they once numbered in the thousands and now the number is likely in the single digits, and that does not even include June in Angie, because after the experience the June, how with a bank he lost his leases and even though there is a lawsuit and the facts will be determined. I know from my reporting that there's a white

farmer in Louisiana right now who hast sum of June and energies land. I talked to him while working on this story, were featured in and a new story. His name is rind Oreo successes, a newcomer to the industry, and I wanted to know what he thought about the allegations that June was making about losing the land. Now and I gave it to me. Ok now, one aspect of your story in- and I appreciate your words strong and you don't want. Your word agrees is born. Ok, great, so the question that I wanted to follow up. Essentially he says that Arafat,

in terms of the provost and other black farmers down there in particular that he name that they lost their farms, not because of any kind of racism. We make a black white speculation, but it doesn't have anything to do with black white. Ok, they lost vary greatly from one reason: they must bear the work that we have in the area he flat out says there simply horrible farmers drew all that doesn't make him a better harmony Oh, don't be mad at you must admit the boy get about on. Ok. Is there anything else? You want me to know that I didn't ask with regard to these allegations in and your I'm role as well

farmer in in a barrier region, I'm just a successful woman. I very like a game open. You know you gonna, put on a uniform everyday, get out and go look at the land. They wanna get mad at the White Band, a black man's land that don't work around here. Ok, like I told you that your phone number now and I got your name- make damp Haven't you publish it? Would I get there, don't spend it on me because they ve got up with awaiting boys. Never on here Gerardo dont became more Europe

what Mr De, I absolutely appreciate you call me back so thank you very much talk. I have a good evening. This is this, is our home in has been almost a year since the sheriff sales as the for closure and when

when we actually lost home I mean I literally didn't. Go outside I mean I stayed in the house. The blinds were close. I mean and I went months months, our memory and you Possibly say June s enough, she was sorry not the blinds in in Some light in the house is all I wanted it dark ass could be. I was an instant a phone for any body. I was just keep press and media Just until recently, probably maybe begin this year that I really started. Going out and is making a roaring, which was the best for me to make a Gordon like that. I'm here I never thought. I'd say that a goring unites the phone calls to five thousand acres of weight. Just to get my is dirty it just back into the dirt aegis is is up what

This is my ma baby here. As you know, in a note. The fields we would always call sugar cane always did asthma. KIDS, because you have to take care of it, I mean, but, but here a glance Look look once labelling here. Look how big my God, worthier, sweet potatoes

water million cannibal Gummy. Yet it is growing like wall is a beautiful. He s the other metals Donal swimming. Today. The water is like a blue green.

Assign shimmering off a beautiful so when you came here the first time. What were you expecting are hoping for? I can't say I had any particular expectation. I just felt it was important to actually look out into this, but where those first Africans king, I definitely try to think of what it must have felt like for them. By the time they would have gotten here would have been weeks since they saw any land whatsoever and just think about that like to be kidnapped and crossed across this ocean.

And then, when you see land the land, but nothing like, if the EU had ever seen before, the people that land look nothing like anything you had ever seen before, though thinking about? All of that now, when I see this water and water, but feels very sad right now, but the one thing I didn't realize when I started this project was how wrong how raw everything still is.

We are black in this country and keep always white people with one tell you to get over it it to move on, but you ve, never really. There's never been reckoning for what was done and hard to move on and in spending so much time. Thinking about it constantly. I just realized that the wounds are still very wrong. They still there that's what

One thousand six hundred and nineteen, what's produced by Annie Brown, Kelly, prime and emails and me a diesel Eagan. It was edited by Larissa Anderson, LISA, Chow, LISA, Tobin and Wendy Door. The technical director is Brad Fisher. The managing producer is Loretta Anderson Mix by Brad Fisher and Dan Powell, music by David, Anthony

additional music by Brad Fisher and Dan Tower, thanks to Michel Harris, Graham hey Shop, Alex CARP, Julia Simon Stella, TAN Clare, Teghmus, scatter, astern, Mitchell and Jasmine Aguilera special thanks, Jake Silver Steam, unawareness Silverman Sound, You sound like my neck, turned into bacon idea. I want to catch a crab before we go. To kill. Mocking bird has not played to a single empty seat report. Sixty minutes, it's the most successful American Lay in broadway history, rolling stone gives it five stars, calling it admissible and unforgettable all rise for the miracle that is mocking bird on Broadway. It's a New York Times. Critics pick Jesse Green calls. It among

bird for our moments? Beautiful elegiac, satisfying even exhilarating. Harper leads to kill a mocking bird, a new play by air and Sorkin a New York Times. Critics pick tickets, I tell a charge dot com between two or cancellations lost, creative, gags and shrinking out revenue? The covered nineteen crisis is making it clear that the system supporting creative people is broken. Patriarch offers a better way. We help creators make up lost revenue and build a more sustainable income source by offering a monthly membership to their fans. In turn, fans get access to exclusive community premium contents and the chance to become active participants in the work they love check out. Patria, dot com now and help change. The way art is valued