Black Farmers File Suit Over USDA Loan Discrimination

Black farmer Timothy Pigford and 400 others filed a class-action lawsuit — Pigford v. Glickman — against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, alleging systematic discrimination in farm loan processing that caused thousands of Black farmers to lose their land from 1981–1996. The USDA's own data showed Black loan applicants waited 3–5 times longer for decisions. A 1999 consent decree awarded $1 billion to approximately 16,000 claimants.