Glenn Beck Attacks Launch of Muhammad’s Economic Blueprint
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on
Farming Subsidies for White Americans
The enemies of the rise of Black people are ruthless in attacking anyone who attempts to advance the independent economic development of Black people. In October of 2013 the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan launched a nationwide economic-development plan based on the Economic Blueprint of The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Since there is nothing in the Economic Blueprint that the enemies of Black people could attack without exposing their blatant racism and hatred for Black people, hatchet man Glenn Beck went after the character of the Honorable Minister Farrakhan in an article written by Becket Adams and posted on theblaze.com website on December 9, 2013, titled “Wait Until You Hear How Many Farm Subsidies Are Going to Groups in…the City of Chicago—Including One Associated with Louis Farrakhan.” A portion of this article reads:
“A total of 930 entities in the Chicago area received farm subsidies between 2008 and 2011. And as for the Louis Farrakhan group: Three Year Economic Savings, Inc., which is listed at his home address, received approximately $103,529 between 2008 and 2011, making it the 12th highest farm subsidy recipient in the Chicago area.”
First of all, Adams & Beck do not define what “Chicago area” means. Is it a zip code area, city planning district area, police precinct area or just a narrowly defined “area” that suits their purpose?
The innuendo here is that Minister Farrakhan is personally getting $103,529 from the government. If you do not understand farming, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) farm programs, or the history of the relationship between the USDA and Black farmers, you can be taken aback by such “large subsidies going to a black farmer.” Oh, did I tell you that Minister Farrakhan has been a farmer since 1995? Now, since Minister Farrakhan has stated that we are going after land and farming, let us bring you up to date on the history of this struggle to get and retain land.
By 1910, Blacks owned 16 million acres of land, in spite of the mass violence called “lynching”—premeditated murder that was not even illegal according to federal law. Up until the 1930s, there was no federal law against lynching a Black person.
However, the Whites who owned land needed labor, which they no longer had or could depend on (as a result of Blacks leaving the South en masse). The U.S. government through research developed at the USDA and at colleges funded by USDA research grants invented labor-saving equipment and chemicals to replace labor. To pay for this equipment and increased production costs, the government made low-interest loans available to White farmers and not Black farmers. Over time the Whites developed a competitive advantage that drove many more Black farmers off their land and their children into the cities.
This depopulation of the countryside and reduction of Black wealth were not happening fast enough. So in 1962 the business mogul-dominated Committee for Economic Development (CED), a government-sponsored think tank, outlined what they called “An Adaptive Approach,” in which they stated: “Net migration out of agriculture has been going on for 40 years, and at a rapid rate. Nevertheless, the movement of people from agriculture has not been fast enough…” The CED’s “adaptive approach” recommended that
(1) Vocational agriculture courses in rural areas be scrapped,
(2) Agricultural prices be substantially lowered, and
(3) Temporary income programs be instituted to protect the most “suited for survival.”
Of course, the farmers “suited for survival” were mostly white. But now even the White farmers were finding it hard to stay on the land as the costs for their inputs kept going up, while the prices for their outputs remained constant or even sometimes dropped.
Over the 28-year period from 1969 to 1997, the cost of fertilizer per acre had jumped from about $10 per acre to over $30 per acre. Petroleum costs had gone up from about $8 per acre to over $20 per acre. Chemical costs had skyrocketed from about $4 per acre to over $24 per acre. And land rent had gone up from $12 per acre to almost $50 per acre. While the cost of farm inputs had exploded, the price that the farmer receives for grain crops had stayed basically constant, hovering between $3 and $4 per bushel. So the plan that the Committee for Economic Development put forward has been put into full effect. Farmers have faced a tremendous cost squeeze, even as they have been more productive on a per acre basis.
The government stepped in to give farm subsidies to selected farmers, ranging from as low as $5 per acre to almost $140 per acre. Yield information was distorted at the USDA local offices to ensure that Black farmers did not get government subsidies or insurance payments. On average, from 1982 to 1992, White farmers received $1,023 per acre in farm subsidies, while Black farmers received only $274 per acre. Since farmland prices in the 1980s ran about $1,000 per acre, the USDA essentially helped White farmers to buy another acre for each acre they already had. And of course the land that they bought was the acreage of distressed Black farmers. So now Black farmers own less than 4 million acres of land, a mere one-fourth of what they were able to amass by 1910, 45 years after slavery.
The mechanism used to discriminate against Black farmers was, and is, the USDA’s Farm Service Agency County Committee. This “Committee” of just three White farmers in Terrell County, Ga., determines how federal USDA funds are disbursed in Terrell County. This process takes place in every county of the United States. Now, Glenn Beck’s article talks about the Nation of Islam’s Three Year Economic Savings, Inc., which owns and operates the 1556-acre Muhammad Farm in Terrell County, Ga. Even though Mr. Beck would prefer to focus our attention on Chicago, the real comparisons should be made in Terrell County, where the Nation’s farm resides. This almost sixteen hundred-acre farm is large by Black farm standards, but very small compared with the White farms in Terrell County and Southwest Georgia.
To make our comparisons we went to the “EWG Farm Subsidy Database.” The Environmental Working Group’s website provides a list of the top recipients of USDA farm subsidies in the U.S. Farming (commodity) subsidies received by farms in Terrell County, Ga., totaled $89,499,000 from 1995 to 2012. The Three Year Economic Savings, Inc. (Muhammad Farm) received $108,398 during this time period. However, when we compare this with other farms in Terrell County, we find that the Nation’s farm is 146th on the list of those who received funds during this same time period. In fact, the top recipient in Terrell County is none other than the Chairman of Terrell County Board of Commissioners, Wilbur Gamble, who received through his two entities, “Wilbur Gamble” and “Gamble Farms, Inc.,” a total of $4,283,199.
Wilbur Gamble has used the USDA programs to gain wealth and power in Terrell County and has used that power over a 40-year period to block any type of economic development entering this county that might provide alternative employment to Blacks who work on his and other “good-old-boy” plantations in the county. In fact, there were 20 farms in Terrell County that received over $1,000,000 and 57 farms that received over $500,000—all white. So in other words, what Minister Farrakhan has taught us is true: this system believes that the Black man should receive NOTHING, not even if he is entitled to it. Even though our farm in Georgia does not receive anything like our White neighbors, we are providing decent employment for county residents and shipping produce to 8 states each year and whole wheat flour to 40 cities.
Black people pay billions of dollars in taxes and the USDA gives out billions of dollars in farm subsidies to White farmers, but somehow Black farmers are still supposed to receive NOTHING. And if a Black farmer receives anything, we as Black people are supposed to feel ashamed and therefore not back the Nation’s Economic Blueprint. Mr. Beck and his ilk believe that it is wrong for Black farmers to receive the government subsidies that the White farmers receive in the millions of dollars, yet they want to prevent Black people from pooling their resources under the guidance of Minister Farrakhan to do something for themselves. Mr. Beck, you are proving that what we have written about you—in articles like “Glenn Beck: The Fusion of Lies and Racism”—is all true. We see that your mindset can truly be seen as the mind of a devil.
Shame on you, Mr. Beck: Go after the real thieves and leave God’s man alone as he works to redeem a race of people that your people still hold in virtual servitude. Let My People GO!! And, my people, support our Nation’s Economic Blueprint to eliminate poverty and want by signing up on www.economicblueprint.org.
READ MORE ON GLENN BECK: Fusion of Lies and Racism
After the departure of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad in 1975, the Minister Farrakhan rose up in 1979 to rebuild the work of The Messenger. By doing that, he has made the enemies of The Messenger his enemies. They attacked The Messenger because he was more than a preacher—he was a nation builder, revealing the real Children of Israel and forming them into a baby nation within the borders of the Synagogue of Satan, the U.S.A. But to build a nation and deliver his people, The Messenger needed land.
In Message to the Black Man The Honorable Elijah Muhammad devoted many chapters to the importance of land, including “Of Land And A Nation,” “A House Of Our Own,” “Do We Have The Qualified Men and Women For Self-Government?,” “Separate And Be Saved,” “We Must Have Some Earth—And Soon,” “A Nation Of Our Own,” and “A Nation Within A Nation.” He writes on page 223:
“In order to build a nation you must first have some land. From our first generation of slaves to the present generation of our people, we have been unable to unite and acquire some land of our own due to the mental poisoning of our former slave-masters, who destroyed in us the desire to think and do for self and kind….
“Today, the international conception of honor, pride and dignity is not concerned with individuals within a country but is rather concerned with your work and value as a part of an established nation.
“In order to be recognized today you must represent your nation. We must understand the importance of land to our nation.”
In 1963 The Messenger launched “The Three-Year Economic Savings Program.” With the nickels and dimes from our people across the country, he bought farmland in Alabama, Georgia, and Michigan. Right from the very start, enemies of the rise of Black people began to attack our Nation’s farm operations. In 1969 the Nation of Islam bought 900 acres of land near Pell City, Ala., but in a two-and-one-half-month period, evil White terrorists shot or poisoned 63 cows. The Nation took the remaining 225 heads of cattle to its farm in Terrell County, Ga., and sold the land in Pell City.
In Georgia the Nation owned a 200-acre egg farm near Dawson, Ga., and a 4,000-acre row crop and dairy farm outside Bronwood, Ga., both farms located in what was called at that time “Terrible Terrell” County. Terrell County was nicknamed “terrible” because it had one of the worst records of race repression and violence in the South right up to the time when the Nation purchased farmland in 1966. At that time Terrell County had a population of about 12,000, 80 percent Black, but only 12 Black people could vote. Headlines in the 1960s described the bombing of churches and the shooting of Black homes. The murder of Blacks by whites was not uncommon in Terrell County, including the assassination of the local NAACP representative.
After the Nation arrived in Terrell County, the local Blacks pushed back the White power structure, which was dominated by big White farmers who owned thousands of acres of land and were the major employers of Blacks in the county. These big White farmers pulled the political strings of the county: They included James G. Raines, who was the mayor of the county seat, Dawson, for 16 years during the 1960s at the height of White repression. This period also saw the rise of Wilbur T. Gamble, the head of the Terrell County Board of Commissioners. The significance of these two power brokers concerning the issue of farm subsidies will be made apparent shortly.
With this backdrop the Nation arrived in “Terrible Terrell” County and began to hire local workers in its dairy and canning facilities. The Nation’s farm began to deposit sizable amounts of money in the bank, became a major purchaser of farm inputs, bought a fleet of tractors and began to ship tractor-trailer loads of produce up North. This gave the local Blacks something to point to with pride, which irked the White power structure, who was afraid to attack the Nation outright because of the two to three hundred FOI between Terrell County and the city of Albany just 19 miles away. Starting in the 1970s, Blacks began to seize the political reins in Terrell County, so that now in 2013 it has Black mayors in Dawson and Bronwood, a Black sheriff for the county, a Black police chief for the city, complete control of the Board of Education and City Council in Dawson, and most recently the county has two Black members on its Board of Commissioners (Wilbur T. Gamble is still the Chairman).
When the Messenger departed, his son Wallace Muhammad sold all of the Nation’s farm properties, including the 4,000-acre crop and dairy farm in Terrell County. Minister Farrakhan reinstituted The Three-Year Economic Savings Program in 1991 and in 1994 redeemed 1556 acres of the original 4,000-acre farm. The owner of the 4,000 acres at first would not sell any of the land to the Nation, but after a severe flood in Southwest Georgia in 1994, Mr. Don Bridges decided to sell a portion of this land, but not before he cut and sold all of the marketable timber from 600 wooded acres of the 1556 acres.
Now Glenn Beck decides to attack Minister Farrakhan over this 1556-acre farm in Georgia, owned by the Nation’s Three Year Economic Savings, Inc., for its participation in USDA programs that netted the farm $108,398 (commodity subsidy) dollars over a seventeen-year period from 1995 to 2012. But of course Mr. Beck did not tell the whole story, which a careful analysis of the data that his staff had at their disposal would have revealed. Let us help him.
When the Nation acquired the 1556 acres of land in November of 1994, approximately 641 acres were swampy wetlands not suited or legal to farm. There was an old pecan orchard on 15 acres and the remaining 900 acres were farmable, but not being farmed by Mr. Bridges. Mr. Bridges had taken advantage of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a USDA program ostensibly designed to protect soil, streams, and wildlife habitat on farms by temporarily removing land from agricultural production. He had placed 827 of the remaining 900 acres in that program and was receiving $36,967 from the government each year NOT TO FARM. Of course, Minister Farrakhan bought the land to farm and not to milk the government. Minister Farrakhan hired a farm manager in February of 1995 to help plan a strategy for utilizing this land, but at the time—because the US government was offering annual rental payments NOT TO FARM the 827 acres—a strategy had to be worked out just to get the land withdrawn from this program.
The USDA required the farmer who took this land out of agricultural production to work to control the “noxious weeds” so that the land would not completely revert to its natural state and be overrun by unwanted, troublesome plants. Each year the owner was supposed to spray the conserved land with weed-killing chemicals or mow down or harrow the weeds. Mr. Bridges had the land in this USDA program for 5 years before he sold it to the Nation, but he had done nothing to control those “noxious weeds,” so Minister Farrakhan told us to take photographs of these weed-infested fields, which had weeds the size of small trees growing wild. When these pictures were shown to the USDA employees in Terrell County, they rushed to allow the land to be removed from the set-aside program without penalty.
If Minister Farrakhan had bought this land just to make money, he could have left the land in the USDA’s CRP and received $36,967 for the next 17 years, which would have netted The Minister $628,439—a far cry above the $108,398 (the total amount of commodity funds received 1995-2012) highlighted by Mr. Beck, a subsidy that you could only receive if you farmed the land. The Nation of Islam would then have been the largest recipient of CRP programs—ahead of the present top leaders of Terrell County, James G. Raines ($556,302) and Wilbur T. Gamble ($489,945). Since it seems that there is nothing that a Black man can do to please Mr. Beck and his kind, they should “Let My People Go” with the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and Muhammad’s Economic Blueprint. Join at www.economicblueprint.org.