Cather Woods

“Jim Hightower was one of the best things for Texas in my experience, in my lifetime, and I’m 78 years old. So, I started working with farmers during that era. He was really nice. He worked hard to make sure that he made it better for blacks. By making sure that you knew what was there, by reaching out to the various committees, by bringing in people of color into his organizations. Because yourself, if you see somebody look like you, then you will trust the head more than you would if nobody there look like you. That was one thing he was famous for, was inclusion.”

Cather Woods was one of the early leaders in recruiting black farmers to join the Landowners Association of Texas and attend the Black Farmer Conferences. She understood that black farmers needed to organize in order to get the information they needed on the various programs offered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and to ensure that their requests weren’t ignored. She worked tirelessly to overcome the distrust many black farmers had about registering for government programs because they feared someone would take their land. Cather lives on her family farm, where she raises trees, cattle and hay.