Kansas News Service Bernard Bates holds a notebook of documents from the lawsuits he s been a part of while trying to get his farmland back.
The federal government plans to send payments to Black farmers this summer to compensate for loans and aid they lost out on during generations of discrimination. In Nicodemus, Kansas, farmers say the help has come too late.
NICODEMUS, Kansas At his home in northwest Kansas, Bernard Bates thumbs through a stack of faded color photographs nearly 40 years old.
One shows a group of men in county sheriff’s jackets standing in front of a combine. In another, two men inspect plowing equipment on a flatbed truck.
Housing Crisis Threatens To Stifle Rural Kansas Towns Hoping To Grow hppr.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hppr.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
enter pivot irrigation sprinklers water a wheat field in Finney County.
HAYS, Kansas A few years ago, Stuart Beckman drove 65 miles with a neighbor to attend a wedding in Saint Francis in the northwest corner of Kansas.
The two farmers weren’t particularly welcome.
“They found out where we were from,” Beckman said, “and they just about ran us out of there.”
Not surprisingly for this part of the High Plains, the trouble started over water.
“We’re these dumb (farmers) that are thinking we can get by with an acre-foot of water and that s crazy,” Beckman said, recalling the reception he and his neighbor got in Saint Francis. “‘You guys ought to go back home.’”
David Condos, Kansas News Service
HAYS, Kansas A few years ago, Stuart Beckman drove 65 miles with a neighbor to attend a wedding in Saint Francis in the northwest corner of Kansas.
The two farmers weren’t particularly welcome.
“They found out where we were from,” Beckman said, “and they just about ran us out of there.”
Not surprisingly for this part of the High Plains, the trouble started over water.
“We’re these dumb (farmers) that are thinking we can get by with an acre-foot of water and that’s crazy,” Beckman said, recalling the reception he and his neighbor got in Saint Francis. “‘You guys ought to go back home. ”