Meet the Artist and the Alabamians Involved in the Black Farmers' Settlement

On Friday, April 7, the MMFA will host a discussion and reception at the Museum that delves into the experiences of Black farmers in Alabama. We invite the public to join us from 4 to 5:30 PM to meet and hear from the artist Bernard Williams and scholar Elijah Gaddis. Two individuals intimately involved in the farming industry—John Williams and Albert “Peter” Datcher—will also share their personal farming experiences in Alabama and their participation in the 1999 class-action lawsuit Pigford v. Glickman.
 
At the center of Bernard Williams’ work and the discussion is the historic class-action lawsuit Pigford v. Glickman, which proved the United States Department of Agriculture had systematically deprived African-American farmers of loans and other government assistance and resulted in a $1.25 billion settlement.

Colloquially known as the Black farmers’ settlement, the funds were distributed among approximately 13,000 African-American families with proven connections to farmers who were summarily dispossessed of land and farming opportunities from 1981–1996. Although it is not widely known, the Black farmers' settlement is the largest civil rights settlement in the United States.