Debra Walker

Debra Walker was only twenty-five years old when she first heard about the 1985 Farm Aid concert in Champaign, Illinois. At the time, she was a student at the University of Illinois who was studying abroad in Salzburg, Austria. While listening to her transistor radio, she heard an announcement that Willie Nelson was organizing a concert to be held at the University of Illinois to benefit American farmers on September 22. Excited that she would be back on campus by then, she made plans with her boyfriend to attend the concert. Initially, she had no intention of going to see anyone specific since the announcement only mentioned Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and John Cougar Mellencamp. However, when Carole King was added to the performer line-up, the concert took on a new experience for her. Walker says, “I would have to say I'm a singer and I'm in the same range as Carole King, and so that was a special thing because I grew up singing Carole King songs…And so that was probably a real highlight for me.”

Debra recalls the day of the concert as fun and surreal. She was among many people who had the opportunity to witness star performers in real life rather than through the radio or a screen. When she was younger, she saw Kris Kristofferson in the 1976 film A Star Is Born at the movie theatre and she couldn’t believe she was seeing him perform on stage only years later. From her photographs, she watched the performance from the West Main stand of the stadium. When it started to rain, she and her boyfriend moved underneath to seek shelter.

Debra also discussed a possible explanation as to why there was a lack of black performers at Farm Aid. When questioned about the lack of black representation in the concert lineup, Farm Aid organizer Willie Nelson said “There was no way to get a hold of all those people in that little time” while John Mellencamp said “You got to understand these people have a lot of other causes. They’ve been fighting a battle for their entire history”, suggesting that black performers were preoccupied with causes that made more sense to engage in such as racial justice. However, Debra assigns the disparity of black representation in concert attendees and performers to a lack of public consciousness about the black farmer. She says, “Truly, I didn’t think about the fact that, you know, probably most of the audience was probably white. Probably most of the performers were white. And when you think about the people who attended, they’re not going to be thinking about the poor farmer, the poor black farmer, sharecropper in the South, not in Central Illinois.” Moreover, the 2017 U.S. Agricultural Census cites that 95.4% of farmers are white. As Debra highlights, perhaps the lack of black representation had little to do with the rushed organization of the concert and more with the dominant perception of what the American farmer looked like.

Surprisingly, the 1985 concert wasn’t Debra’s last encounter with Farm Aid. In 2000, she was part of the board of directors for the Illinois Bar Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization of Illinois lawyers. When she joined the board, she recalled how “people kept talking about the farm money” and explained, “We, the Illinois Bar Foundation, were a repository for some of the funds that Willie Nelson raised from Farm Aid in 1985, and they were having trouble basically getting rid of the money.” Farm Aid raised more than nine million dollars, but at the time, not many people knew how it would be allocated. Debra further explains how the nine million had to be distributed to the Illinois Bar Foundation since it was the legal repository for the funds of Illinois. During 2000 and 2015, Debra says the Foundation spent the remaining Farm Aid money funding “lawyers who are willing to work pro bono for farmers in the state of Illinois who are having legal difficulties.” They also invested in legal aid for farmers and funded projects for farm migrant workers. 

Debra’s personal experience with Farm Aid and its cause predated the concert and her time at the Illinois Bar Foundation. Growing up as a farmer’s daughter in Carthage, Illinois she also experienced the farmer’s crisis. She knew of the immense stress that her father and the surrounding farming community were feeling. She says, “I know that a lot of farmers were committing suicide, declaring bankruptcy, having heart attacks. It was really bad and it was because of the grain embargo and my father hated the president who decided to employ that grain embargo because it was destroying the small family farmer which was what we were like.” Debra is referencing the grain embargo President Jimmy Carter enforced in 1980 in response to the USSR invasion of Afghanistan. The embargo was another economic blow to farmers since the Soviet Union was a major importer of American grain at the time. This economic challenge only added to the painful suffering manifesting in the farming community. For example, the crisis caused an increase in farmer suicides which remained high throughout the 80s.

1980 was also the year mental health campaigns emerged to help alleviate the exacerbated stress felt by the farming community. Debra explains that farming was already an incredibly stressful occupation since nothing was in the farmer’s control, not even the weather. High-interest rates and the lack of federal assistance further added to the farmer’s plight which bred grave consequences. She says, “I would blame the farmers crisis of the early 80s for the death of my father, actually, and for three other farmers who live within a square mile of our farm. We lost four farmers to heart attacks within one year.” Unfortunately, Debra’s father died before he could witness the national attention Farm Aid brought to the farming crisis. When Debra’s mother passed away, she and her brother inherited the five-hundred acres of land, but only her brother still uses it to farm. 

Debra’s oral history serves as a reminder that Farm Aid wasn’t only a concert with superstar performers, but it was driven by the desire to draw national attention to the serious struggle many American farmers were battling. She witnessed the crisis’s devastating consequences like the death of her father and lived to see acclaimed rock and country artists mobilize to help the American farmer. Debra’s story also explains long unanswered historical questions such as the lack of black representation at Farm Aid and the allocation of the concert’s raised funds. Her oral history is valuable to those interested in the impacts of the farm crisis and the significance of the Farm Aid concert.

(written by Summer Matthes)