A profile in the Washington Post:

The old black farmers whose case he comes to Washington to discuss were getting older, dying off, and they still had not been repaid for the years of discrimination to which the government had subjected them. A few weeks before, when President Obama had released his proposed budget, he had included .25 billion for the 70,000 farmers with outstanding claims -- an amount that as far as Boyd was concerned was .25 billion short....

His voice carried traces of bitterness, the product of years of heartache that he said began in 1994, when he was 28 and his farm was nearing foreclosure. Year after year, he had been applying to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for operating loans. Year after year, the applications were denied or delayed.

And, there's history of racial discrimination in the agency known as 'the last plantation.'

For a short history of a 1999 lawsuit filed by Native American farmers against the USDA's discriminatory loan programs, go to the law firm of Cohen Milstein.

Check out a Jan-Feb 2009 ColorLines perspective on Boyd.

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