black farmer head wants part of indian settlement

[xchrom]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/black-farmer-head-wants-part-indian-settlement

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The president of the National Black Farmers Association says he's being stiffed by the attorneys behind a $3.4 billion government settlement with Native American landowners who asked him to lobby Congress to fund the payout.

John Boyd, who spent years championing the discrimination claims of tens of thousands of black farmers, said he took on the task of pressing reluctant lawmakers to pass appropriations legislation in 2010 that included both the Indians' settlement and the farmers' own $1.15 billion deal.

He said he did so at the request of the attorneys representing hundreds of thousands Native Americans who said they were swindled out of the royalties owed to them for more than a century of development on land parcels they owned and the government held in trust. The lawsuit was filed in 1996 by Elouise Cobell of Browning, Montana, who died in 2011.

Boyd complained that the attorneys for the Native American plaintiffs received $99 million from the settlement, but he never saw a dime.

[djean111]

1. I think the headline is a bit inflammatory.

Whether he is entitled to compensation as a lobbyist or not, and it looks complicated, and the Native Americans lawyers seem a bit venal, he is not asking for anything as a black farmer, and he is asking for part of the bite the Native American lawyers took from the deal.