Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has promised Black newspaper publishers that the department, with its long history of documented race discrimination, will do better at civil rights and the fair dissemination of advertising dollars in coming months and years.

Speaking to publishers of the National Newspaper Publishers Association during Black Press Week in mid-March, Vilsack reflected on what he described as “the unfortunate history that this department has had in civil rights” which has now prompted “the most comprehensive commitment to civil rights that … the USDA has needed for a substantial amount of time.”

He said among the first things he did upon appointment by President Barack Obama was to visit with a number of former secretaries of agriculture. “One of the things that the secretaries would comment on was the poor record of civil rights,” he said. “Agriculture took three significant steps in order to try to close that chapter.”

Vilsack outlined the steps as follows:

• To work aggressively to close the class action suit filed by Black farmers because of gross race discrimination. “We’re close on the Black Farmer case”, Vilsack said. “We need Congress to appropriate $1.15 billion that will then be distributed to thousands of farmers who were not treated fairly by USDA years ago.”

• The Second thing is to “do a better job internally in terms of promotions and hiring in order to make sure we are reflective of the diversity in America and specifically the diversity we find in rural America,” Vilsack said. He asked the publishers to help by getting the word out about internships that are available for college students who might be interested in long-term jobs at the USDA.

• The third and final thing was to “order an external review of all the programs that have previously been a part of the problem in creating these discrimination claims.'' He said a specialized firm “is in the process of reviewing all the activities in 14 states where most of the problems and issues occurred” and it will bring back recommendations in a year or so “to make sure these programs are not continuing to create claims of discrimination.”

He promised an in depth review:''Is it a training issue? Is it a personnel issue? Is it a program issue? Is it a lack of understanding about the application process issue? Or what precisely is it?”

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