“It is wrong to boycott Israel” is a bipartisan message. But is banning the boycott a violation of First Amendment rights? Also, the story of a man who is trying to boycott Israel while living under Israeli occupation.
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This episode was originally broadcast July 1, 2017.
Picture an American farmer. Chances are, the farmer you’re imagining is white – more than 9 out of 10 American farmers today are. But historically, African Americans played a huge role in agriculture. The nation’s economy was built largely on black farm labor: in bondage for hundreds of years, followed by a century of sharecropping and tenant farming.
In the early 1900s, African American families owned one-seventh of the nation’s farmland, 15 million acres. A hundred years later, black farmers own only one-quarter of the land they once held and now make up less than 1 percent of American farm families.
The federal government has admitted it was part of the problem. In 1997, a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture said discrimination by the agency was a factor in the decline of black farms. A landmark class-action lawsuit on behalf of black farmers, Pigford v. Glickman, was settled in 1999, and the government paid out more than $2 billion as a result. But advocates for black farmers say problems persist.
On this episode of Reveal, reporter John Biewen of “Scene on Radio” tells the story of a black farmer who says the USDA treated him unfairly because of his race.
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Last year, California had its deadliest and most destructive wildfire season in recorded history. No fire killed more people or burned down more buildings than the Tubbs Fire. Reveal investigates what made the Tubbs Fire so devastating by delving into the history of one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods.
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In 1996, Eddie Wise, the son of a sharecropper, purchased a farm with a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Twenty years later, the USDA foreclosed on the property and evicted him. Reveal investigates his claim that he was discriminated against because of his race.
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This post was originally published on Reveal.