Federal judge halts Black farmers’ debt-relief program in new legal blow

The debt cancellation provisions in the American Rescue Plan were inspired by legislation called the Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2021, said Tracy McCurty, executive director of the Black Belt Justice Center, a group that works with Black farmers. That bill provided debt cancellation, federal and state tax relief, and the return of offsets to Black farmers who participated in what she said were disastrous racial discrimination lawsuits in the 1990s, which “left the vast majority of Black farmers, over 22,000, in unconscionable debt, threat of foreclosure, and no legal recourse to save their family farms.”