Debra Walker Interview

Interview with Debra Walker 

April 1, 2023 

Memorial Stadium 

Champaign, IL 

Interviewers: Anabella, James, and Jose 

 

AN = Anabella 

JA = James 

JO = Jose 

DW = Debra Walker 

 

 
AN: OK, I'm Anabella and. 

 

JA: I'm James. 

 

JO: And I'm Jose 

 

AN: And we're recording on April 1st at the Farm Aid history harvest. 

 

AN: Can you please state and spell your name? 

 

DW: Yes. My name is Debra Walker. D-E-B-R-A, W-A-L-K-E-R. 

 

AN: Thank you so much. 

 

AN: So how did you hear about Farm Aid, first?  

 

DW: The original concert. Or about this harvest? 

 

AN: In 85. 

 

DW: Well, I have an interesting story that you probably haven't heard from anybody else because I was in Europe when I heard about it, I was studying abroad that summer in Salzburg, Austria, and I had my radio, a little transistor radio, which was about all that was available in those days, right? There weren't any iPods or anything of that nature. And I listened to US Air Force broadcasts. When I was in my room studying abroad that summer and they said that Willie Nelson was organizing a concert to benefit farmers, American farmers at the University of Illinois in Champaign on September, I think it was the 22nd. And so, I was really thrilled about that because I was a student here, and I knew I'd be on campus in September, and I had met a guy in Salzburg that summer who ended up becoming my first husband and I told him about it. And he said, oh, I'll drive down to Chicago for that, and we'll have a fun weekend, and we'll go to the concert. 

 

So that was my sort of pre-concert story I wanted to share is that I heard about it through a U.S. 

military radio station when I was in Europe for the summer. 

 

AN: That’s so cool. 

 

DW: I also have a post story, so I hope you guys will ask me the post story later.

 

AN: You can tell it right now if you want to.. 

 

DW: OK, well, so I was a lawyer, a trial lawyer for 21 years, and then I have been on the bench for about 14 1/2 years in Chicago. I am now on the Illinois Appellate Court. So I'm a justice of the appellate court, a new justice, newly elected. But about the year 2000, I joined a board of directors for the Illinois Bar Foundation. So that is the charitable arm of the Illinois State Bar Association, the organization for lawyers. OK? And I was on that board for 15 years straight. And I was president of that board from 2012 to 2014. And when I joined the board, people kept talking about that farm money, and I said, what are you talking about? Why do you keep talking about the farm money? Well, 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. 

 

And I'm a farm kid, originally from Carthage, IL, from West Central Illinois, where I grew up. So, I grew up a long way from Chicago in many ways, but and so I said, well, what do you mean we're having trouble getting rid of the money. I mean, farmers are declaring bankruptcy. Can't we do a project where we fund lawyers who are willing to work pro bono for farmers in the state of Illinois who are having legal difficulties. And so that's what we did. And during those 15 years, I was on the board, we got rid of that Farm Aid money, so you probably haven't heard that story either. 

 

So, see I have that pre story and then of course the event itself and sort of this post period where I was partially responsible for spending the money that was raised to benefit farmers. 

 

JO: Can you tell us more about the the day of the event, how it looked like, how entrance looked like, stuff like that? 

 

DW: How what looked like? 

 

JO: Entrance  

 

DW: Yeah, I don't remember the entrance very well. It was not memorable in any way to me. I remember where we were seated. We were seated sort of directly below here – West Main Stand. And my pictures reflect that because as soon as I thought that's where we were was West Main Stand. And when I pulled out my photographs, I could see the MP buildings which are now called the ARC, but it used to be called MP. And that was before the student section was built on the stadium. So, I was correct in my memory when I looked at the photographs that we were seated in the West Main Stand and it started to rain later in the evening, and so we moved up underneath the overhang in the stadium. This is before any of this was built, you understand? So, we moved up to be underneath the overhang to be protected from the rain. 

 

And I left the concert a little bit before it ended because I had a pigeon poop on my head and I could only stand it for a certain period of time and then I had to leave because I had to go home and wash my hair because it was really gross. 

 

AN: So, it wasn't the weather that took you out?  

 

DW: Because all the pigeons were, you know, underneath, just like we were underneath you know. So yeah, so that was a pigeon poop event on the day of. But you know, I just remember it being a really fun day, a long day, but really fun. Just seeing so many performing artists in one place at one time was beyond anybody's imagining, I think. 

 

AN: Did you want to see anyone in particular when you heard about the concert?

 

DW: No in fact, I think when they first announced it, they were just talking about Willie Nelson and maybe Johnny Cash and John Cougar, you know, and people like that. And then, of course, it started building upon itself. And I think even after we purchased tickets, there were more and more people. 

 

(Phone Rings) 

 

Sorry, I should have turned that down. 

 

There were more and more people being added that were friends of Willie's. Yeah.. I mean, 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. I still sing them. If you're at a karaoke party, you would hear me sing her songs.And so that was probably a real highlight for me. 

 

But Johnny Cash and I mean you know, there were just so many. Kris Kristofferson. And I don't know if you know this because you are young, but you know the movie a star is born has been made several times, and Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson were in the one when I was a little younger than you and went to the movies and so to see him too, in person, and Billy Joel, I mean, it was just a really fun day. And it was really, I mean, there were so many people here. It was something else. But yeah, we were just able to walk here from my apartment, which is a block from where my daughter lives now. That was my daughter. So yeah, so we just walked here from, you know, Chalmers and Locust. 

 

AN: Prior to going to the event, did you have any, like, previous knowledge about the farm crisis or any personal connection to it? 

 

DW: Well, of course, cause I'm a farmer's daughter. I knew all about it. Yeah. So in fact, 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. 

 

Farming is an incredibly stressful occupation, and the primary reason it's so stressful is that nothing is within your control. The primary factors that control how good your crop will be or the weather and that is beyond anybody's control. So you know you have to have a certain amount of moisture, but not too much. And you have to have a certain amount of sunny hot days, but not too many And so on and so forth in order to have a perfect crop. We're sitting on the best farmland in the United States of America – I don't know if you guys know that. But Champaign County has the blackest soil – and it's not just the United States of America it's the world we have the best soil – and it extends all the way across to where I grew up, too. It's right across the band of central Illinois. And so yes, I grew up on a farm, so I know everything about farm life. 

 

I mean, all of my early years were spent on the farm until I came to U of I and I have two degrees from Illinois and accounting degree and a law degree. And I worked in downtown Champaign in between my degrees. So that's why I lived here for 9 years all together. 

 

So I know everything about the farm crisis. I know how it was caused. 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. We never had a lot of land.  My dad farmed our family farm and his dad's farm and all together it was about 500 acres that we farmed.  My brother still farms our farm that we grew up on. I still own part of that farm that when my mom died, we inherited. But yeah, my dad had already died in January of 1983, by the time that Willie Nelson decided to organize these people to have this benefit. It's really the intersectionality, I think of social justice and entertainment. If you want to look at it that way. Since I'm a justice oriented person. 

 

AN: So, after the concert – since you have such a personal connection to it – did you notice a difference in the farming community? And did you notice, like, any of the money raised, if it made a impact or no? 

 

DW: No, I didn't have that personal experience because by this time, you know, I'd left the farm. So, I was in law school and I was bound for Chicago for a good job and to marry my first husband, who was a Chicagoan. And also, you know my dad, the farmer, had died, although my brother was still farming. And so I didn't really notice any significant difference because I wasn't starting that summer from that point forward, I never really other than going home for short visits with my mom, I never really went back to the farm. Do you know what I mean? 

 

Yeah. So because I was, you know, I was starting my second year of law school. My summer associate position was in Chicago. After I graduated in ‘87, I moved to Chicago, got married – I got married in Champaign – moved to Chicago with my first husband and have lived there ever since. 

 

So I didn't see anything, but the story I told you previously about the distribution of the funds sort of brought it all home to roost, so to speak. That, yeah, all that money was raised. What did he do with it? Right? And so it had to have been distributed to other 501C3 organizations, other nonprofits, and we must have been the legal repository for the funds for the state of Illinois. Which would make sense because we were the 501C3 organization of the Illinois lawyers, the Illinois State Bar Association. 

 

JA: I have one question. How long after the concert did you see that case of, oh, Farm Aid actually still has money that they haven't distributed? 

 

DW: Well, I joined the board in 2000. I was on the board from 2000 to 2015. So, it was during that time period, there was still money available that needed to be spent, and so we did some projects, we funded projects with regard to what I already told you, legal aid for farmers, but we also funded some projects for farm migrant workers. Because, I don't know if you guys realize this, but there are a lot of farm migrant workers in the state of Illinois, and in the United States of America. And they are seasonal workers and they roam from place to place and many of them are Mexican. And many of them have had legal issues, especially with people taking advantage of them and threatening them. For example, if they didn't do certain things because if you don't have legal status in this country but you're working in this country for cash, you are susceptible to a lot of issues. Maybe you've heard this already from other people. But yeah, so we also assisted with some of that money – farm migrant workers. 

 

DW: Are you Mexican American, Jose? So you know what I'm talking about?  

 

JO: Yep, my family worked in that. 

 

DW: So I'm not only a double Illini, but I'm a double Illini mother and I'm about to become the president of the University of Illinois’ Moms’ Association board. So, I spend a lot of time on campus and that's why I'm here this weekend for engineering open house. Our son's a freshman and he's a robotics guy. Aerospace engineering. 

 

DW: So, I'm here for EOH and I had a meeting today, a transition meeting between the current president of the Moms’ Association and me. And our sort of executive director at the Union. So, then I walked from the Union over here. 

 

Yeah, because my sister lives near Tuscola, which is half an hour South of Champagne, and she clipped out the clipping that was in the News Gazette. And that's how I learned what you guys were doing. And I knew I was going to be here this weekend, so I thought I would stop by. 

 

JA: Yeah. Thank you for coming. And I just wanted to pick up on one last thing you said.  You talked about how you know how I guess multiracial farming really is in America. And one thing we've been discussing in class is, you know, the Farm Aid concert even though you know it was raising money for the American farmer, it was mostly white performers, and it feels like there was a kind of higher importance, maybe, maybe placed on white farmers. When you were there, did you think about that dynamic at all?

 

DW: No, you have to understand that probably most of the sort of let's just call it a lot more race awareness and cultural awareness is more of a recent phenomenon in this country. Like, until I read on the poster out there that there were only two Black performers at Farm Aid, I wouldn't have even thought of it. 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. 

 

It wasn't something, as a 25-year-old, that I was as plugged into. But now, of course, you know, I teach judges throughout the state of Illinois on diversity, equity, inclusion. I teach on a whole array of professionalism topics for lawyers and judges in the state of Illinois, and so I'm far more in tune with those factors now than I would have been as a 25-year-old law student at the University of Illinois, you know what I'm saying? 

And I also think we are what we are. So, you know Central Illinois for example. I mean, I'm sure there were people of color in the audience, right? And we've already talked about the performers, right? But you have to think about Central Illinois. There are not very many people of color other than university students who live in central Illinois. OK? It's mostly Caucasian, downstate Illinois. Once you get a little bit north of  St. Louis and a little bit south of Chicago, that whole central section of the state is going to be Caucasian. 

 

So, you know, that's probably why the audience, if you look at photographs, you probably don't see very many people of color in the audience either because, you know, this wasn't just students that came to Farm Aid. People from the whole community drove here.You know, my brother drove here to attend my older brother, who also had gone to school here. And a lot of what we call Townies came, right? It wasn't just students. 

 

So, yeah, you guys live in a far more advanced, I would say, sort of multiracial, multicultural world than we grew up in. And I'm thankful for that because my kids grew up in that environment and you know, as I told you, I have two students here, a freshman and a junior.  So, I'm grateful for that,  because I think we learn from each other. 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. You know, what I’m saying. It's just wasn't on the consciousness, I would say. 

 

AN: Yeah, well, unfortunately, I think we're a little pressed for time today with all the interviews. 

 

DW: OK. 

 

AN: So you might have to cut it here.  

 

DW: Oh, no I’m all good 

 

AN: If you ever want to go back for a follow up interview, the Champaign County History Museum is doing is scheduling more in the future and they're right out there.