Hosted by award-winning musician and documentary producer Shirlette Ammons, Tending is a six-part narrative series that explores the ongoing struggles of Black farmers through the lens of Pigford v. Glickman—once the largest civil rights class-action lawsuit in U.S. history.
In Tending, Ammons—an eastern North Carolina native with deep farming roots—travels across seven Southern states to meet Pigford claimants and their descendants. Their stories paint a vivid picture of injustice and an ongoing fight for restitution. Each episode is rooted in a different state, uncovering the complex realities of Black farmers who’ve endured racial discrimination, land loss, and denial of federal loans: often at the hands of USDA county committees.
Many of the farmers interviewed are elderly and despite the Pigford ruling, continue to grapple with farm loss, overwhelming debt and deep emotional scars as they wait – watching their generational wealth and knowledge slip away. Gravy tells stories of the changing American South, and Tending is a reminder of the undeniable urgency of some of those stories.
Tending airs on Gravy weekly from October 15 to November 19, 2025. Episodes will be added to this page as they are published.
Visit the Tending website here to learn more.
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Shirlette Ammons is a poet, storyteller, and musician. Most importantly, she’s the granddaughter of a Black farmer. She traveled across seven states, including her native North Carolina, meeting claimants in the Pigford case. Tending seeks the harvest at the end of a long row—tune in October 15, 2025.
Host Shirlette Ammons begins a journey to reclaim her family’s legacy by exploring the largest civil rights lawsuit in U.S. history, Pigford v. Glickman, in which Black farmers fought against discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to save their family land.
Ammons travels to Georgia, where she meets two Black farmers whose stories illustrate the emotional and physical toll of fighting the USDA’s discrimination.
Shirlette Ammons visits Nicodemus, Kansas, a historic Black settlement, to learn how one family’s battle against the USDA’s discrimination became a foundation for the Pigford v. Glickman lawsuit.
The fourth installment of the six-part Tending series explores the power of the USDA’s county committees, recounting a Black family’s tragic story of land loss and harassment and examining why these local committees are often called “the last plantation.”
Shirlette Ammons examines the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program, comparing it to the Pigford settlement and assessing whether this new federal program represents a genuine step toward justice for Black farmers.
In the sixth and final episode of her six-part Tending series, host Shirlette Ammons seeks insight on the future of Black farming and asks if there is a world in which farmers are not dependent on the USDA.
