Officials and members with the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association are meeting Saturday at the Vicksburg Convention Center to discuss and answer questions concerning the appeals court decision in the case of Boyland vs. the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The meeting will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mayor George Flaggs Jr. is expected to attend in support of the farmers.

“What we’re trying to do is a public awareness tour,” association spokeswoman Patricia Rogers said. “A lot of farmers may not have heard about this U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that was handed down. We’ve got to get the word out to all the farmers and let them know.”

The court ruled in the Boyland case that some African American farmers were entitled to help under a second round of relief through a 1999 class-action suit.

She said Thomas Burrell, BFAA president, met recently with the Trump administration about the court’s Oct. 31 ruling, and is trying to meet with Trump to get his support for the court’s ruling.

Rogers said the association’s attorneys must have their briefs filed with the court briefs by Jan. 16, and applications for relief will be reviewed by a merit panel.

The Boyland lawsuit was a class-action lawsuit filed by the family of Earnest Lee Boyland, a Tennessee farmer, claiming discriminatory practices by the USDA.

The suit claims a private claims administrator hired by the USDA improperly denied the farmers’ efforts to be part of the second-phase settlement involving the settlement of a 1999 class-action suit filed by African American farmers claiming discrimination by the USDA between 1983 and 1997.

About 16,000 farmers received a total of $1.06 billion in settlements under the 1999 ruling, but more than 1,000 farmers missed the September 2000 deadline for filing claims under the initial suit, and Congress added a provision to the 2008 Farm Bill allowing them to petition the court for relief. Congress in 2010 approved an additional $1.2 billion for the second-phase of settlements.

In July 2013, association members received a letter from Epiq Systems, a government contract claims agent, that they were not eligible to participate in the process because they were African American men. The company claimed relief was open only to Hispanic and Latino women, leading to the lawsuit.