Residents of the historic Black farming community of Pembroke, Illinois want an energy upgrade—but they want renewables, not fossil fuels.

Hopkins Park, a small south-suburban community founded by African American farming families, will soon have access to natural gas in their homes and busineses for the first time.

Farmers cite environmental and safety concerns. It also would tie Hopkins Park to fossil fuels and, according to one senator,‘ threatens to replace the last community of African American farmers in Illinois.’

A group of Black farmers reportedly filed a class-action lawsuit for $5 billion, claiming the federal government illegally broke a promise to pay off their debts.

Today, U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Tina Smith (D-MN), Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) reintroduced the Justice for Black Farmers Act, legislation that aims to address and correct historic discrimination within federal farm assistance and lending at the U.S. Department of Agriculture that has caused Black farmers to lose millions of acres of farmland and robbed Black farmers and their families of the hundreds of billions of dollars of inter-generational wealth that land represented. Senator Booker first introduced the legislation in 2020.

The 13 Black farm workers who sued two Delta Farms — accusing the farm operators of racist hiring practices and paying white visa workers from South Africa more per hour — have reached a settlement outside of court, their attorneys announced this week.