Eva M. Clayton: “this is an opportunity, I think, that we have to acknowledge that a great injustice has been done. And I agree with the…”

“this is an opportunity, I think, that we have to acknowledge that a great injustice has been done. And I agree with the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), we ought to just say we should not have done that, government. We understand we did wrong, and try to make amends. We have done this in this country before. And the pain and suffering that is continuously happening need not happen. But more importantly, we ought to say something about the sincerity of this democracy when we acknowledge that people have been aggrieved and harmed; that is what the rule of law is about. It is about justice and equity. And this is a small, narrow group. We are not talking about a large group. We are talking about a small narrow group. In fact, only 3 percent of the Americans provide the food and fiber anyhow. And of that 3 percent, we have less than 16,000 African-American farmers. So we need to find how we increase the number of farmers. Not only for opportunities, but increase of number of farmers, period. And not put them at a disadvantage. They are providing food and fiber for all of us as Americans. They do not discriminate. They put their sweat and their brow to produce good food at affordable rates.”