Remarks OF SECRETARY DAN GLICKMAN BLACKS IN GOVERNMENT
                                                          Release No. 0279.97
Remarks OF SECRETARY DAN GLICKMAN BLACKS IN GOVERNMENT
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- AUGUST 19, 1997
INTRODUCTION
Thank you all for inviting me here today. I'm glad to see such a good crowd
for this topic. It's deserving of attention -- within USDA, within the federal
government, and across the country.
You know, on the North Lawn of the Whitten Building, which houses USDA's
headquarters, there's a big tree that was planted many years ago in memory of
Dr. Martin Luther King. The placard in front of it reads,  The ultimate
measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience, but where
he stands at times of challenge.'
These are times of challenge at USDA -- challenges that we are meeting head
on.
We're gathering momentum from many corners -- from folks like Senator Robb and
Rep. Conyers on the Hill, from Lawrence Lucas and the Coalition of Minority
Employees, from John Boyd and the National Association of Black Farmers,
President Clinton -- and we're facing a problem that's been allowed to fester
since really the mid-1800s. It's not been given the attention that we now
demand people pay to it.
I was in Detroit not too long ago for an empowerment zone conference with
Secretary Cuomo. I took some time out to visit the new museum of African
American history. There, I was struck by just how much of America's racial
history is rooted in agriculture.
We fought a civil war largely over the right Southern plantation owners
asserted to enslave men, women and children to work in their fields.
After the war, while some former slaves went North, many more stayed in the
South and worked the land. Of course, they couldn't own land, and regularly
faced the worst kinds of abuse and discrimination -- pushing them on to the
cities and factories, whether they wanted to go or not.
Then, during the Industrial Revolution and on into the Depression Era, as
agriculture evolved and became less labor-intensive, even more African
Americans left the farm for the city.
In many ways, when this country laid down its arms, the real battle began: How
could we take the ideals of our nation, values that we had reaffirmed with our
blood -- and rebuild a United States.
In many ways, that's what we're still talking about today. At Gettysburg,
Lincoln talked about a nation  dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created equal.' A century later, Dr. King talked about a dream that he would
not live to see fulfilled. Today, President Clinton talks about the need to
build  one America.'
We are going to realize that dream at the Department of Agriculture.
Just over a month ago, I testified before the House Agriculture Committee on
what's happening at USDA. It was the first hearing by that committee ever on
civil rights at USDA. I served in Congress for 18 years, and I told my former
colleagues that neither past Administrations nor past Congresses gave this
issue the time of day. I said that too many of us look back on the progress
made in the 1960s, of the historic civil rights laws passed in that time, and
think we got the job done. But I know that our nation does not yet fully
practice what we preach. I've talked to people who've lost their farm ... good
people ... who lost their family land ... not because of a bad crop, not
because of a flood, but because of the color of their skin. I've talked to
employees ... dedicated public servants ... who've been humiliated, abused and
then punished for speaking up.
Looking back over the decisions I've made, one that I'm most proud of was
refusing to draw a dividing line between what's happening to our employees and
what's happening to our customers. In both cases, our ultimate challenge is
the same as our nation's: We must find a way to turn civil rights into civil
realities.
You know, too many folks tend to tune out when people start talking about
racial healing and the need to find strength in our diversity. I understand
their cynicism. But I also ask them to take a look at what we're doing at
USDA.
We're 6 months out the gate from the release of our independent, candid civil
rights report. It was precisely what we needed. It was blunt, highly critical,
and mostly a series of bullets recommending specific actions that could help
make things tangibly better. Now, we're busy putting that plan into action.
A lot of what we're doing right now is trying to institutionalize common sense
and fairness:
-- It is now a condition of employment that every USDA employee treat every
customer and co-worker fairly and equitably, with dignity and respect.
-- We have a zero-tolerance policy against reprisals. I've made it crystal
clear that people who think about retaliating against an employee who stands
up for his or her rights had better think first about keeping their own job.
-- We have a new foreclosure policy: When a civil rights complaint is filed,
the foreclosure is immediately frozen -- wherever it is in the process --
until an independent review determines the merits of the case. I simply will
not stand for the loss of another farm due to discrimination.
-- We have new lending policies: Now, when someone has a complaint pending,
we've made sure they can still apply for a loan. If it's the loan officer
who's been charged, then another person handles the application. If the loan's
denied, there's a meeting and a letter of explanation. This way, if there is a
legitimate reason for turning folks down, we make sure they understand why.
-- We're also trying to change the law that bars folks who've had a debt write
down from our loan programs. Plenty of good people lost their shirts --
through no fault of their own -- in the  80s farm slump. We need to
reintroduce the notion of redemption to our credit policies.
-- Without question, part of the problem is economic. I've established a
National Commission on the Small Farm to explore race, class and other factors
that make it hard for small farmers to stay on the land. Like every other
major sector of our economy -- health care, banking, retail stores --
agriculture is concentrating into fewer and larger operations, putting the
squeeze on small farmers of every race. We need a national strategy to save
the small farm and keep the rural American dream alive -- so folks can earn a
decent living for themselves and their families from the land.
-- We're also bringing more accountability to our ranks. One hurdle we face is
the structure of USDA. Since the days of FDR, USDA has had people in every
county of the country -- helping farmers and putting a human face on the
federal government. We need a strong, local USDA presence, but we can do a
better job of making sure it works for all the people it's meant to serve.
Right now, we have 2 sets of workers -- county-based and federal employees.
Both get their paycheck from the federal government. They work side by side,
in the same office, doing the same business of USDA. But they don't have the
same boss. I don't want to be their boss when it comes to tailoring federal
programs to that county's needs. But when it comes to civil rights, I do want
the power to ensure that we're serving all the people of that county to the
best of our ability. We are working with our allies on Capitol Hill, with Sen.
Robb, Rep. Conyers, Rep. Clayton and others, to pass legislation that draws
the distinction. It hasn't exactly been met with open arms, but it's the right
thing to do, and we can do it the right way -- protecting people's human
rights and dignity without encroaching on the local voices that make our farm
programs work.
-- We need accountability at the top, too. From now on, our civil rights
enforcer, the Assistant Secretary of Administration -- who right now is Mr.
Pearlie Reed who headed up the Civil Rights Action Team -- will review all our
top department officials. I've made it clear that his review of their civil
rights performance is as important as their performance on any specific
program.
-- We will soon have an Office of Outreach, so we can do a better job of
working with communities that have been underserved in the past. And, we're
hiring on a civil rights arm for our Office of General Counsel, so we have
full-time civil rights advocates on our legal team.
I'm proud of the progress we've made, but I've also undergone a serious
reality check as to the massive amounts of time, resources, people power and
leadership that it's going to take -- at USDA, in Congress, and in our
communities -- to institutionalize lasting change.
One problem that's been particularly tenacious is the backlog in civil rights
complaints. We've had people stuck in the system literally for years. And, I
don't have to explain to any of you what life's like for an employee who's
filed a complaint against her boss, and then has to wait year after year for
closure. A lot of the problem dates back to the fact that in the mid-80s, our
civil rights investigators were disbanded. We're now hiring back those
positions, and expect that will help us break up the logjam and move on at a
more fair and humane clip, so people can get on with their lives, and we no
longer have to worry about justice delayed being justice denied.
When you take all these changes together, when you hold people personally
accountable for being a part of the solution, when you put new policies on the
books with words like  zero tolerance,'  condition of employment,' and the
rest, people take notice.
But I'd also like to say that the vast majority of our folks -- both at
headquarters and in the field -- are good people. They are dedicated, fair-minded, overworked and underpaid. There are a lot of folks out there who say,
 Well, Secretary Glickman seems to care about this, but no one else does.'
They're wrong. I understand their cynicism, but we will prove them wrong. We
will build a work force that both reflects and respects the rich diversity of
this nation.
You know, this has been as much a lesson in the nature of humanity as the
nature of bureaucracy. We're dealing with policies and programs, but we're
also dealing with people's hearts and minds. Some things change faster than
others. But they will change.
My goal is to get USDA out from under a history of discrimination, and have it
emerge in the dawn of the next century as the federal civil rights leader. I'm
under no illusions about the magnitude of this task, but neither am I under
any illusions as to its significance.
USDA is struggling with problems that are not unique to agriculture, that are
not unique to government, that in some respects are not even unique to our
nation. But they have everything to do with what we are about as a nation.
The history of the world has given us far too many examples of the
destructiveness of mindless divisions. For more than 2 centuries, the world
has looked to us, to America -- the relative newcomers -- to forge a new path
-- one that seeks out and finds the unity, pride and strength that so many of
us truly believe can come of all our differences.
Not every chapter in our history is exemplary of this quest, but we've been
given glimpses of what our workplaces, our communities, our country and our
world might be like if we could transcend the schisms of our many differences.
I believe that we change the world by each of us changing our little corner of
the world. That's what we're doing at the Department of Agriculture.
I made a promise to President Clinton that civil rights would be my legacy at
USDA. I make that same promise to all of you today.
Thank you.
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