Shame on The New York Times for the bias that was so evident in last week's front page story titled "Federal Spigot Flows as Farmers Claim Bias." It clearly implied that even meager restitution was underserved and we were unworthy plaintiffs, although we successfully proved racial discrimination in...

The disastrous fertilizer plant explosion in Texas this week should be a wake-up call for Americans. With an estimated 15 dead and more than 160 reported injured, this incident shows just how dangerous a retail fertilizer facility can be. And the Texas tragedy was made even more stunning...

April 4, 2013 -- On this day 45 years ago, a crazed gunman shot down one of the most prominent peacemakers this nation ever produced. Just over a century earlier, another mad triggerman took fatal aim at a president for his insistence on the universal right to freedom.
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Now is the Time to Act

Yesterday, President Obama put forth a set of executive actions and legislative proposals aimed at halting a continuing wave of gun violence that has bloodied communities in nearly every section of the United States.

The president responded boldly and swiftly, just one month...

This week, more than 400,000 Native Americans from numerous tribal groups will receive $1,000 checks -- just in time for Christmas. These court-ordered payments from the federal government will begin to settle a landmark $3.4 billion class action lawsuit.

The suit, Cobell v....

Along with other African American leaders, I recently attended a White House meeting on the fiscal cliff. We all have read something about the so called fiscal cliff or watched pundits spin the issue on 24-hour cable news.

Over the last few weeks Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner...

Last night America spoke in a voice loud and clear by re-electing President Barack Obama for four more years. The message: It's a new day in America. After the country received news of his re-election, Republican rival Mitt Romney humbly conceded in the early morning hours. His defeat can be...

Most concerned Americans watched all three presidential debates; we all had different opinions about who won or lost. What was most striking to me was just how divided our country has become. For the first time in my memory almost everyone has a particular issue issue that is most important...

Our Representatives left Washington without passing a Farm Bill, leaving one of the nation's most vital enterprises high and dry -- in more ways than one.

Every five years, Congress passes a massive bundle of legislation commonly called the "Farm
Bill," that sets national policy on agriculture, nutrition, conservation...

"July 15: 102 degrees. Corn and everything is mostly discussed . . . It is really too hot, dry, discouraging and devilish to do anything. . ."

"July 21: I have seen a good many bad years in this country . . . but I never saw any worse than...

Forty-four days late, justice finally showed up for Trayvon Martin and his family. Florida Special Prosecutor Angela B. Corey announced yesterday that she will charge George Zimmerman with second-degree murder for the shooting death of the unarmed teenager on February 26 in Sanford, Florida.

Many attributed the belated...

This week marks the 47th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," the violent assault by Alabama police and state troopers on peaceful Civil Rights marchers seeking voting rights for black Americans. Yet, even as that landmark event in Selma is recalled in a symbolic repeat of the march across the Edmund Pettus...

Black farmers in the United States are disappearing. Their numbers shrank from approximately 900,000 in the 1920s down to about 43,000 in the last U.S. Census -- down to less than 1 percent of America's farmers.

But the staggering 98 percent decline in Black farm ownership does not tell the...

Some of the Republicans vying for their party's presidential nomination have contracted a disease that can best be called "black tongue disease." Whether they are sending subtle or coded messages to white voters, or simply displaying commonplace racist attitudes, these candidates clearly appear afflicted with the age-old American condition of...

The discussion at my Thanksgiving table was different this year, just days after the Senate took the historic step of unanimously passing the funding to finally resolve the decades-old Black farmers discrimination case.

For each of the past 10 years since the landmark civil rights case settlement between the Black...

The price of unregulated mega-farming will be more public health crises to come

If my experience is any guide, the people who are least surprised to hear of the appalling conditions that led to the egg recall that began on August 13 were my fellow small and...

After the Senate's vote, which effectively removed appropriations language for minority farmers, Senator Harry Reid released a statement saying, "Republicans should be held accountable for standing in the way of justice for those affected." I am no politician, I am a farmer, but it seems to me everyone should be...

As the nation strives to put people back to work, now is the time to honor our promise to black farmers. President Obama asked Congress in May for $1.15 billion for black farmers to compensate them for discrimination by the Department of Agriculture, but Congress has failed to act. This...