The Land of Our Fathers, Part 2

Summary

1619 Podcast: The Land of Our Fathers, Part 2

Host: Nikole Hannah-Jones
Release Date: October 12, 2019
Series: 1619, The New York Times
Description: "1619" explores the profound impact of slavery on the United States, marking the arrival of enslaved Africans in Virginia as the nation's foundational moment.

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Introduction

In "The Land of Our Fathers, Part 2," Nikole Hannah-Jones delves deeper into the enduring legacy of slavery by spotlighting the struggles of black farmers in contemporary America. The episode intertwines personal narratives with historical context, revealing systemic discrimination that continues to undermine black agriculturalists.

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June and Angie Provost's Struggle

June and Angie Provost, black sugar cane farmers, have been battling to sustain their family farm against a backdrop of financial and institutional challenges.

Angie Provost (00:53):

"When we buried my dad... I wanted to make him proud. And when all that happened, I felt like I was letting my dad down."

Despite their dedication, the couple faces insurmountable obstacles in securing necessary funding to maintain their farm.

Angie Provost (02:44):

"Oh, never. Never. I mean, I'm a sugar cane farmer and I mean, I loved it. This is my family's legacy."

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Discriminatory Practices by First Guaranty Bank

The core of their struggle lies with First Guaranty Bank, which has allegedly engaged in discriminatory practices by manipulating loan agreements.

Angie Provost (03:11):

"It was a repetitive cycle... late loans, underfunded over collateralization."

June and Angie argue that the bank consistently reduced their loan amounts without consent, crippling their ability to operate effectively.

Angie Provost (06:12):

"He said, do you realize that First Guaranty bank is photocopying your signatures... and changing the loan amount."

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The Role of USDA and Whistleblower William Husband

June turns to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) seeking assistance, leading to an encounter with William Husband, a USDA employee who becomes a pivotal whistleblower.

June Provost (05:30):

"He said, 'I want y’all to sit in my office... I want you to pull out what you need.'"

Husband reveals the extent of the bank's misconduct, providing June and Angie with crucial evidence to support their claims of racial discrimination.

Angie Provost (07:44):

"He said, I'm shaking... that answered my question, my..."

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Historical Context: Civil Rights Settlement for Black Farmers

The episode contextualizes the current plight of the Provosts within a broader history of discrimination against black farmers. Highlighting a landmark lawsuit led by Alexander Pires, the narrative showcases systemic bias ingrained in federal agricultural policies.

Khalil Gibran Muhammad (12:04):

"One day in the late 1990s... black farmers walked into a lawyer's office to sue the USDA for discrimination."

This lawsuit culminated in the largest civil rights settlement in U.S. history, yet its resolution did not fully eradicate the entrenched biases faced by black farmers.

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Ongoing Challenges and Modern-Day Parallels

Despite the 2014 settlement, black farmers like June and Angie continue to encounter systemic barriers. The lack of sufficient reparations and continued discriminatory practices by financial institutions perpetuate their struggles.

Nikole Hannah-Jones (10:46):

"First Guaranty bank would not speak with us... the largest amount of money the government has ever paid to settle a discrimination case."

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Perspectives and Counterclaims

The episode also presents counter-narratives from white farmers who deny any racial bias, attributing the Provosts' failures to agricultural incompetence rather than systemic discrimination.

Ryan Dorie (26:37):

"They are horrible farmers. They are the worst farmers that we have in the area."

Such perspectives highlight the ongoing tension and contested narratives surrounding race and agriculture in America.

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Personal Reflections and Emotional Impact

Angie Provost shares the profound personal toll of losing their home and land, illustrating the emotional and psychological burdens of systemic disenfranchisement.

Angie Provost (31:42):

"I didn't want to go outside... It’s just a beautiful evening."

Nikole Hannah-Jones reflects on the raw and enduring wounds of America's racial history, emphasizing the lack of societal reckoning.

Adizah Egan (32:25):

"I just realized that the wounds are still very raw. They're still there."

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Conclusion

"The Land of Our Fathers, Part 2" poignantly underscores the persistent challenges faced by black farmers, linking personal adversity to historical and systemic injustices. Through the Provosts' story and broader civil rights narratives, the episode calls for a deeper understanding and acknowledgment of the enduring legacy of slavery in shaping contemporary American realities.

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Notable Quotes:

• Angie Provost (00:53):

  "I wanted to make him proud. And when all that happened, I felt like I was letting my dad down."

• Angie Provost (06:12):

  "First Guaranty bank is photocopying your signatures... and changing the loan amount."

• Khalil Gibran Muhammad (12:04):

  "Black farmers walked into a lawyer's office to sue the USDA for discrimination."

• Ryan Dorie (26:37):

  "They are horrible farmers. They are the worst farmers that we have in the area."

• Adizah Egan (32:25):

  "The wounds are still very raw. They're still there."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and emotions conveyed in "The Land of Our Fathers, Part 2," providing a nuanced understanding for those who haven't listened to the episode.

Transcript

[June Provost]

This is his father's grave site. You see all the flowers on here? They've been here since Father's Day. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.

[Angie Provost]

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive.

[June Provost]

Those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou amongst women, and blessed.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

Is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

[Angie Provost]

When we buried my dad, you know, when people was trying to console me, the first thing they would say, you know, look where he's buried. He said, he's buried right next to the cane field, something that you love. And that really made me feel good at the time, you know, made me feel better, I guess I can say. But after all this happened, I stopped coming to even see my dad because I just. I couldn't. I just, you know, I just wanted to make him proud. And when all that happened, I felt like I was letting my dad down. And it just. You know, he wanted to pass the form down to his kids and his grandkids, and I let him down.

[June Provost]

You didn't let your dad down. You know that.

[Adizah Egan]

From the New York Times Magazine. I'm Nikole. Hannah Jones. This is 16.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

So after this terrible year, did you think about giving up the business?

[Angie Provost]

Oh, never. Never. I mean, I'm a sugar cane farmer and I mean, I loved it. This is my family's legacy. This is what I am good at. I've been doing it since I was a little boy. I mean, never once would I ever give up. Foreman.

[Adizah Egan]

Adizah Egan. Why don't you pick up where you left off?

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

So June and Angie Provost have been struggling for years to keep their sugar cane farm going.

[Angie Provost]

It was a repetitive cycle, pretty much. I mean, late loans, underfunded over collateralization.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

And they say it's because they can't get enough money from their bank, called First Guaranty to run their farm.

[Angie Provost]

It's a trickle down effect. If you can't plant all of your acres that one year, you're going to fill it the next year and the year after that. If you can't fertilize your whole crop, what kind of yields are you going to make, own that acres?

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

And he can't just go to another bank to get the loan because he says other banks have told him that he's in too deep with First Guarantee he's put up pretty much all of his assets as collateral.

[Angie Provost]

So what have I was supposed to do? So I did go to the USDA and asked him to apply some pressure. I need my crop loan. I need to be in the field.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

And so June turns to the federal government to complain. Basically, when a farmer goes to a bank to apply for a crop loan, the bank then turns to a local branch of the U.S. department of Agriculture, because even though the loan is provided by the bank, the USDA will step in in the event that the farmer can't pay back the loan. So the local USDA office has to sign off on it. But when Jun goes to his local USDA office, they say there's nothing they can do.

[June Provost]

It was almost every year that you go.

[Angie Provost]

Every year I would have to complain because every year, the crop loans would be later and later.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

And then on this one day in May of 2014, that's when everything came to a head.

[Angie Provost]

Everything came to a head.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

In 2014, June finally started to get some answers.

[Angie Provost]

Well, I was at the shop working, just trying to get equipment ready, trying to set up everything for fertilized season for when I get the crop loan. You know, everything would be ready to go. And I got a phone call, and it was the USDA's number.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

He gets a call from a local USDA employee named William Husband.

[Angie Provost]

He said, june, he said, you have a second? I'm saying, like, sure, Mr. Will. And I'm like, what is wrong? He said, do you realize that you're the only farmer in this parish in this office that's going through? What are you going through? He said, no other farmer is going through this.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

William Husband is named as a whistleblower in June's lawsuit against First Guaranty Bank. And the lawsuit claims that Husband, who is white, made it clear that this was about racial discrimination. When we reached out to Husband, he couldn't comment and referred us back to the usda, where he still works. But this is what June and Angie say happened.

[Angie Provost]

He said, come to my office soon as you can.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

At one point after that phone call, William invited June and Angie to come to his office.

[June Provost]

I mean, I could remember that William looking quite disheveled.

[Angie Provost]

Yeah, he was nervous and red. I remember that.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

Where he showed them June's files, He.

[Angie Provost]

Said, I want y' all to sit in my office. I'm gonna close the door. And he had all the files already on his desk from every year. He said, I want you to go through all. All of your files and pull out what you need to pull out, and I'll make copies for you.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

And June says that what he saw in those files clarified for him what had been going on with his crop loans.

[Angie Provost]

He said, do you realize that First Guaranty bank is photocopying your signatures? And I'm like, wait, say that again. He said, yes. He said, first Guaranty bank is photocopying your signatures.

[June Provost]

And this is to USDA guaranteed loan application.

[Angie Provost]

And not only photocopying my signatures, they were changing the loan amount.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

The lawsuit claims that First Guaranty bank had been changing June's loan applications without his consent, reducing the amount he's asking for, leaving him with less money to run his farm.

[Angie Provost]

He said, like, I'm shaking. He said, I'm shaking. That's how he kept saying. He said, june, I'm shaking. I said, Mr. Will, I'm shaking. This is, like, crazy. I mean, for me, it was just like a shock. But, I mean, was I surprised?

[June Provost]

It almost gave justification to the feelings that we've had all that time.

[Angie Provost]

And I think that's what it did. It pretty much answered my question, my.

[June Provost]

Questions, and it's like, here's the proof, you know? So, yeah.

[Adizah Egan]

So what was the bank's explanation for why it had lended June so much less than what he had asked for?

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

First Guaranty bank would not speak with us. But 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 Guaranty bank denies June a crop loan altogether. Without the funds, he couldn't afford to do anything on the limited number of acres he had left. And he couldn't pay the landlords he rented from, so he had to give it up. He lost land his grandfather had farmed. He lost the land he learned to drive a tractor on. And he lost the patch of land off Highway 90 where June and his father had opened rows and covered Cain for the last time. And in 2018, the bank foreclosed on their home. How far is the home from where we are now?

[Angie Provost]

I mean. I mean, it's actually maybe 50 yards away from my mom's home. I mean, and that's the reason why I built there, so I can take care of my parents. And to have my home taken like that is just. It's unreal. I mean, it doesn't make any sense, you know? And every Day 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. I get up every single morning, and the first thing I see is my home. You know, I lost the home in September of last year. They have yet to cut the grass fences, like, falling down. I mean, it's just. It's just a. You know, I got to relive that every day. Relive it every single day. And I tell you what. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. It's. You know, so, you know, those. Those are things that. That. That's. You know, that is so hard to take. So hard. The sugar industry always saying, we need young farmers. We need young farmers. What? They should be saying they want young white farmers.

[Adizah Egan]

So how do we know that the bank wasn't justified in this assessment?

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

Well, we don't know. This is in active litigation, which is in the discovery phase, basically, where both sides are gathering evidence, obtaining documents, interviewing 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 isn't the first time that a black farmer has accused a lending institution of using a crop loan as the tool of discrimination. In fact, it's the allegation at the heart of the largest civil rights settlement in the history of this country.

[Angie Provost]

Really?

[Adizah Egan]

You want me. That's how you want me to introduce him? Khalil.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Hi, Nicole.

[Alexander Pirese]

Hey.

[Adizah Egan]

So say your name.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Khalil Gibran. Muhammad Gibran.

[Adizah Egan]

Okay.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Mm.

[Adizah Egan]

Khalil Gibran. Muhammad, you're a history professor at Harvard. Tell me about this lawsuit that led to the largest civil rights settlement in history.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Well, it's pretty remarkable. One day in the late 1990s, a man named Timothy C. Pickford and a couple of other farmers, Black farmers. Walk into a lawyer's office in D.C. would you introduce yourself to me and pronounce your name, please?

[Alexander Pirese]

Sure. My name is Alexander Pirese. P I R E S. Doesn't really rhyme with anything.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Okay. And could you talk. This man named Alex Pirese, who had been suing the USDA for various reasons, and they told him their story.

[Alexander Pirese]

They told me the story, which was very simple, which was, we're very good farmers, and we can't get loans. And There's a pattern, Mr. Piries. And the pattern is, if we do get a loan, we get a lesser amount than a white. If we do get a loan, it's got more restrictions than a white. If we do get a loan, we get it late in the season. White farmers get it on time. If we do get it and get something going the next year, they'll have problems to keep us from building momentum. And I told them that my experience had been that nobody's going to listen to us unless we have numbers. Numbers is what they get. And I told them, if you could go out and get me 50 black farmers who could tell that same story, I'll file a class action on behalf of you. But what happened was they came back with, I think, 60 or 70 names and addresses. And I said, let's go on the road and see how widespread it is.

[Angie Provost]

I grew up on a farm.

[Alexander Pirese]

My dad farmed, so it's just in.

[Angie Provost]

My blood, I guess.

[Alexander Pirese]

We went on a tour. 155 acres throughout the South.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

60, 70 acres of cotton, 20 acres of corn.

[Angie Provost]

Tried to purchase the land that had.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Been in the family for such a long time.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

I applied for this loan, and I didn't get it.

[Angie Provost]

Just giving him the rental ride.

[Alexander Pirese]

They told me I owe too much.

[Angie Provost]

Tried to discourage me in every way possible.

[Alexander Pirese]

Messages on my answering machine. Nigger, you're gonna get killed. We were successful when I got whatever it was, a hundred and something names.

[Angie Provost]

We're forced out of farming, and that's what we love to do.

[Alexander Pirese]

I came back, I wrote the complaint, and we filed it. We got a judge named Judge Friedman. And that's how it started.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

That's how Pickford and these other farmers came to sue the United States Department of Agriculture.

[Adizah Egan]

So as his lawyer is investigating these farmer stories, what is he learning?

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Well, he's 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 the local level. And in agriculture, the really local level, I mean, county by county, parish by parish, if you were in a place.

[Alexander Pirese]

Like Louisiana, the history had been something like this. Black farmers got really good at specific crops. Year after year after year, they would farm the same crops for white landowners. And they got really good at it. So it was just a matter of time before a younger black farmer would say to himself, what am I doing? I do the same thing over and over again. The white farmer gets rich on my skill. Why don't I just go down the street and lease 100 acres, 200 acres, and do it for myself? Very American, very logical. The problem was that was frightening to the white farmer in the south for three reasons. One, there Goes my labor and my skill. Two, here comes a new competitor. And three, what about me? You know, what about me? What about my rights, my interests? I'm going to talk to the county committee about that.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

The story of Pickford and these claimants is that at the time when they try to get a loan, they would go to a USDA local county committee and apply.

[Alexander Pirese]

The system is very simple.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

There's a local county committee.

[Alexander Pirese]

The county committee decides who gets the funds. And it was completely white controlled.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

These committees are overwhelmingly white, even in.

[Alexander Pirese]

Southern states that had lots of black farmers.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

And what happened is that ultimately the people making the decision about giving the loan were discriminating, because in many instances, they knew the farmland owner from whom this person was breaking away.

[Alexander Pirese]

Five people are there in line. The first four are white. The last one is whack. I'll tell you what's going to happen. 98% of the time. The person who's voting from the county committee, he knows the first four. They fish together, they hunt together. They're never going to vote against them. Person number five is a black man from the black community for which there is no relationship, usually. And it's a wildcard as to whether he's going to get that loan.

[Adizah Egan]

So these farmers are claiming that they're being discriminated against because they're black. And the mechanism of that discrimination are these farm loans.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

That's right through the size of the loan and the release of the funds.

[Alexander Pirese]

It started out with a simple complaint in which everybody was saying the same thing, that there was this treatment by whites. And then the second common element was when they complained about it to the Office of Civil Rights, which is how the system works. Their complaint never got processed.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

In fact, Alex tells us that when he started doing his own research into this, he found that going Back to the 1980s, the Reagan administration closed the USDA's Office of Civil Rights. And so complaints were pouring in going back that far, but there was no office to process them.

[Alexander Pirese]

And I had heard a rumor from a couple of black farmers that there's a room where they just stuff them all. They're afraid to destroy them. So we were interviewing one of the deputy secretaries, and I said, did you guys take all those complaints when you closed the civil rights office? Aren't they all sitting somewhere? Where are they? You didn't destroy them, did you? Where are they? Where is it all? And very nicely, he said, you know, don't get me in trouble. You know, this is where I make a living, you know, but, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The offices are all locked up and they're filled. And I said, I don't need to go down there, and I don't need to get you in trouble. I'm not one of those people. I believe you. Is it in this building? And basically, I got a nod from him. And then it was a hearing or two later in which I said, you know, you, Honor, I want to pursue this because I believe that they've got boxes and boxes that they never processed, which would be great to present to you at the beginning of trial or however you want to do it. They never denied it, ever. But I don't think they needed to go that far. I think they knew that we knew that they knew we knew, and I think that made the difference.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Given that you did not see the files, how were you able to build this into an argument with Judge Friedman that this was the smoking gun, essentially, of the black farmer's case?

[Alexander Pirese]

It was one of the smoking guns, yeah. I think he believed that if they didn't have an Office of Civil Rights, did it really matter what they did with the files? They certainly weren't processing them. Right. That's what made the case unique. It's really two forms of bias and prejudice. First of all, you're discriminated against. And then when you complain, your complaint is not processed, that's another form of discrimination. It's really double. The judge, very early on got it. He understood the pattern. And what we would do is we would tell the black community when the hearings were, and they would all come to Washington. And I don't mean 20 or 30 or 50 of them. I mean hundreds and hundreds of them would come. So we would have 3, 4, 500 black farmers in the courtroom. We had them in the aisles and in front, and then there's side seats, and we had them in the jury box. And I think it bothered Judge Friedman that it come down to this, that our judicial system was not working well and he was going to do something about it.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

And so two years after Timothy Pickford and that group of farmers first came into his office, Alex gets a call.

[Alexander Pirese]

One day, I got a phone call from a senior Associate Attorney General, the.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Department of justice, ready to negotiate.

[Alexander Pirese]

And my requirement was that they actually give real money. Not credit, not maybes, not promises.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

So the deal they basically hammer out is that each farmer who meets the requirements of the complaint is able to receive $50,000.

[Alexander Pirese]

I asked for $50,000 per black farmer.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Tax free, and have their debt forgiven.

[Alexander Pirese]

I'll tell you the Government, in the initial discussions, were having a heart attack over it. You would think I was raiding 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 felt like $50,000 was respectful. Was it perfect? No. No.

[Adizah Egan]

I mean, when I think of $50,000, it doesn't seem to repair much. Right. Like, that's not gonna buy back the land that you lost. It's not gonna put you in a position to be in the place that you would have been if you had been treated the same as white farmers. I mean, it's clearly better than nothing, but it doesn't repair the damage.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

No, 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 shakedown of the federal government, that this was all a reparation scam and white people in the federal government didn't owe 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 hide their own incompetence as farmers.

[Alexander Pirese]

And my answer to that always was, they've been doing the farming in the south for years. Who do you 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 he wants to do it on his own, he's not competent. Black farmers were doing the farming. They were doing the actual work.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

So even though the government did not publicly admit wrongdoing, it ended up paying out nearly a billion dollars to nearly 16,000 farmers, the largest amount of money the government has ever paid to settle a discrimination case. But it's still an unresolved issue. More black farmers came forward who met the conditions of the original complaint and formed Pickford 2. And ultimately, the underlying problem of discrimination remains.

[Alexander Pirese]

Now, there are people who are going to listen to this, and they're going to say, I don't believe that story. And my answer to that is, well, you don't live in the south and you're not a farmer, and you don't understand how the system works where you live. You know, you're probably listening to this, and you're probably in the suburbs of Philadelphia or you live in Brooklyn or something, and your life is totally different. But that's how it worked. 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 all sent me a case involving a sugar matter down south.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

And the case of June and Angie Provost.

[Alexander Pirese]

Yeah, I mean, I read it. I think it's the same story. It involves a bank, and most of ours didn't. But the point's the same. What's the difference between that story and thousands of Pickford stories? What's the difference? The fact pattern is very similar. You know, a very qualified farmer who understands everything there is to know about sugar can't get a. Can't get a loan.

[Adizah Egan]

So, Khalil, I know you've been reporting on June and Angie Provost as well. And their story is so similar to the stories of the farmers in the Pickford lawsuit, which was settled almost 20 years ago. So how much has actually changed for black farmers in this country?

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

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. If we just look at black sugarcane farmers in Louisiana, they once numbered in the thousands, and now the number is most likely in the single digits. And that doesn't even include June and Angie, because after the experience that June had with the bank, he lost his leases. And even though there's a lawsuit and the facts will be determined, I know from my reporting that there's a white farmer in Louisiana right now who has some of June and Angie's land. I talked to him while working on this story. You were featured in a news story. His name is Ryan Dorie. Your success as a newcomer to the industry.

[Ryan Dorie]

That's correct.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

And I wanted to know what he thought about the allegations that June was making about losing the land.

[Ryan Dorie]

So if the accusation was made that I took the land, they know the landowner took the land. And then they came and found a farmer, and they gave it to me.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Okay. Now, one aspect of your story, and I appreciate your strong and.

[Ryan Dorie]

And all I'm. Is all I'm gonna ask you is make damn sure you writing what I'm putting, and don't put it in your own words and change the story.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Okay, great. So the question that I wanted to follow up with, essentially, he says that in terms of the provost and other black farmers down there in particular, that he named that they lost their farms not because of any kind of racism.

[Ryan Dorie]

They trying to make it a black white situation, but it doesn't have anything to do with black white. Okay. They simply lost their acreage for One reason and one reason only. They are horrible farmers. They are the worst farmers that we have in the area.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

He flat out says they're simply horrible farmers.

[Ryan Dorie]

June Provo grew up on a farm. That's all he did. But that doesn't make him a better farmer than me. Some people got it and some people don't. He must have missed the boat, I guess. I don't know.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Okay. Is there anything else you'd want me to know that I didn't ask with regard to these allegations and your role as a farmer in, in the New Iberia region?

[Ryan Dorie]

I'm just a successful farmer in Iberia Parish. That's all I can take.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Okay.

[Ryan Dorie]

You know, and it's just, you know, you got to put on a uniform every day and get out and turn the wrench and go look at the land, you know, and then want to get mad at the white man for taking the black man's land. That don't work around here.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Okay.

[Ryan Dorie]

Like I told you, like I told you, because I got your phone number now and I got your name. Make damn sure whatever you publish is what I just said. Don't spin it on me because this could go the opposite way. Them boys live around here. So don't, don't, don't be changing my shit up.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Okay, well, Mr. Dorie, I absolutely appreciate you calling me back, so thank you very much. Yeah.

[Ryan Dorie]

Thank you.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Okay. Have a good evening.

[Alexander Pirese]

Yeah.

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad]

Sa.

[Angie Provost]

This is, this is our home. And it's been almost a year since the sheriff sale, since the foreclosure. And when, when we actually lost the home, I mean, I literally didn't want to go outside. I mean, I stayed in the house. The blinds were closed. I mean, and I, and I went months, months. I remember Angie fussing and said, june, that's enough. She started opening up the blinds and, and putting some light in the house. Cuz I, I, I wanted it dark as could be. I wasn't answering the phone for anybody. I was just depressed. I mean, it's just until recently, probably maybe beginning of this year, that I really started going out and just making a garden, which was like the best time for me to make a garden like that. I mean, I never thought I would say that a garden. You know, I used to farm close to 5,000 acres, but just to get my hands dirty and just back into the dirt is just, is unbelievable. This is my, my baby here. That's what I call it. Because, you know, like in, in the, in the fields we would always call sugar cane. I always say that's my kids. Because you have to take care of it. I mean, but. But here's eggplants. And look, cantaloupe. Watch this little big one here. Look how big. Like that roll right there is sweet potatoes. And the watermelon and cantaloupe, look. I mean, yeah, they're just growing, like, wild. It is a beautiful evening.

[Alexander Pirese]

Yeah.

[Adizah Egan]

You see all those minnows down there swimming today? The water is like a blue green, the sun shimmering off of it. It's beautiful.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

So when you came here the first time, what were you expecting or hoping for?

[Adizah Egan]

I can't say I had any particular expectation. I just felt it was important to actually look out into the spot where those first Africans came. I definitely tried to think of what it must have felt like for them. I mean, by the time they would have gotten here, it 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 looks nothing like anything you had ever seen before. And the people on that land look nothing like anything you had ever seen before for. So I. I'm thinking about all of that now when I see this water. And it's just water, but. Feels very sad. Right. I think the one thing I didn't realize when I started this project was how raw. How raw everything still is. When you're black in this country, and people always. White people always want to tell you to get over it and to move on, but you've never really. There's never been a reckoning for what was done, and it's hard to move on. And just spending so much time thinking about it constantly, just. I just realized that the wounds are still very raw. They're still there. So that's what I found there.

[Nikole Hannah-Jones]

1619 was produced by Annie Brown, Kelly Prime, Andy Mills, and me, Adizah Egan. It was edited by Larissa Anderson, Lisa Chow, Lisa Tobin, and Wendy Dore. The technical director is Brad Fisher. The managing producer is Larissa Anderson. Mixed by Brad Fisher and Dan Powell. Music by Daoud Anthony. Additional music by Brad Fisher and Dan Powell. Thanks to Michelle Harris, Graham Hayshaw, Alex Karp, Julia Simon, Stella Tan, Claire Tennisketter, Austin Mitchell and Jasmine Aguilera. Special thanks to Jake Silverstein and Elena Silverman. Okay, shall we?

[Adizah Egan]

Shall we? For. My neck turns into bacon out here. Make sure you don't want to catch a crab before we go, okay?