Black farmworkers sue Miss. grower over wages, alleged discrimination

Five Black U.S. farmworkers from Mississippi have filed a federal lawsuit against prominent Mississippi Delta farmer Gregory Carr, accusing him of systemic discrimination by favoring White South African workers over local Black employees. The lawsuit alleges that Carr misused the H-2A visa program, resulting in thousands of dollars in unpaid wages for the American workers.

The suit — lodged in federal court in Greenville by Southern Migrant Legal Services, a project of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, and the Mississippi Center for Justice — makes allegations that Carr exploited the H-2A visa program. This federal program permits U.S. agricultural employers to hire foreign workers only when they can demonstrate a shortage of available and qualified domestic workers for the positions.

The plaintiffs., Michael Anthony Nash, Jimmy Shaw, Vinnie Cason, Grant Lewis, and Charleston Taurvonta Harris, are all natives of the Mississippi Delta who worked as seasonal farmworkers for Carr. According to the complaint, Carr has been hiring White workers from South Africa through the H-2A program since at least 2018.

The core of the lawsuit claims that while Carr paid the H-2A workers the legally mandated, and higher, Adverse Effect Wage Rate, he compensated the Black U.S. farmworkers at a significantly lower rate of $10 per hour for performing the same or similar agricultural tasks. For instance, the AEWR in Mississippi ranged from $10.73 in 2018 to $14.83 in 2025, rates the plaintiffs allege they were denied.

“This is an action for damages and declaratory relief for unpaid wages, breach of contract, and unlawful discrimination brought by five Black American farmworkers who have been systematically underpaid and denied job opportunities for years in favor of white foreign workers by their employer, Gregory Carr,” states the preliminary statement of the complaint.

The lawsuit further contends that Carr deliberately misclassified his Black U.S. workers as independent contractors. This alleged misclassification meant Carr failed to make required Social Security and Medicare contributions, pay employer-side payroll taxes, and provide other employment benefits, thereby increasing the tax burden on the workers and potentially rendering them ineligible for unemployment benefits. The complaint notes, “Each year, Plaintiffs were issued 1099-NEC Forms (1099-MISC Forms before 2020), even though they were employees of Gregory Carr and were not independent contractors.”

“The H-2A program allows American farmers to hire foreign labor when no U.S. workers are available,” said Tessa Pulaski of SMLS, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. “It does not allow farmers to pay their American workforce less than the foreign workers and misclassify them.”

The complaint alleges that Carr, through his business Intrepid Inc. (which has been administratively dissolved since 2019 but allegedly continues to be used to hire H-2A workers), submitted H-2A applications falsely claiming a lack of available U.S. workers.

“Each of these reports stated that Gregory Carr had contacted his former U.S. employees by phone or e-mail, that he had offered them employment at the wages and job terms described in his H-2A applications, and that none of them were available to help fill the manpower needs identified in his H-2A application. These statements were false,” the lawsuit asserts. It also highlights that, “None of the South African H-2A workers hired by Gregory Carr have been Black, despite the fact that Black people constitute the overwhelming majority of the South African populace.”

Carr does not appear to have yet made any public responses to this lawsuit, and contact information was not available at the time of publication. The suit was filed Thursday, and plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial.

Kimberly Jones Merchant, President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Justice, stated, “The intentional underpayment and misclassification of Black farmworkers in favor of white foreign labor not only violates federal law but has become increasingly common in the Mississippi Delta, holding our communities back for generations and perpetuating the historical exploitation faced by Black agricultural workers in our community.”

The lawsuit details numerous alleged violations, including:

• Failing to offer U.S. workers the same benefits, wages, and working conditions as H-2A workers.
• Failing to keep accurate pay records and provide legally required wage statements.
• Offering additional hours of employment, particularly weekend work, more frequently to the white South African H-2A workers than to the plaintiffs.
• Informing plaintiffs like Nash, Harris, and Shaw at various times that no further work was available, even as white South African H-2A workers continued to be employed
• Failing to provide adequate safety gear, such as body harnesses or boatswain chairs, for dangerous work in grain bins, as required by OSHA regulations.
• Failing to display DOL posters informing workers of their rights under the AWPA and H-2A program.
• The suit also includes an allegation that a supervisor used a racial slur towards plaintiff Jimmy Shaw. “Plaintiff Shaw also experienced racial animus from one of
• Gregory Carr’s white South African H-2A workers, who, on information and belief, served in a supervisory role over Shaw. This supervisor used the n-word several times to refer to Shaw within earshot of him, which distressed him,” the complaint details.

Marion Delaney of SMLS commented, “This case shows how the H-2A program can be manipulated to exclude and underpay Black American workers. Federal protections are only meaningful if we enforce them — and that’s exactly what our clients are demanding through this lawsuit.”

The lawsuit asks the court to find that Carr violated the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, federal anti-discrimination laws (specifically 42 U.S.C. § 1981, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race and citizenship status in contracts), and breached employment contracts with the plaintiffs. They seek unpaid wages, statutory damages, compensatory damages, and punitive damages.

This legal action is the ninth such case filed by SMLS and MCJ challenging what they describe as discriminatory labor practices by farmers in the Mississippi Delta. The organizations report that previous similar cases were all settled, resulting in significant wage recoveries for local Black workers.