Unwinding of Past Harm + Investment in Systems of Equity = Modern Vectors of Economic Liberation
"When communities come together to collectively own and manage assets, they can leverage their joint economic power to collectively assert their rights and exercise cultural and political power in a more impactful way than they would on their own. And, when neighbors build community wealth together they create safe and sovereign spaces that foster self-determination and build shared prosperity."
Nwamaka Agbo
Learn about each modern vector of economic liberation below
Envisioning an Equitable Future: a Spoken Word Series by K. Melchor Q. Hall
Summary of Efforts Toward Equity:
Food justice is an important element of the movement for reparations; it necessitates both access to land and access to economic redress in a variety of forms, given the historic connections much of our farmlands have to slavery, sharecropping and other injustices.
Food justice includes the guarantees that fair proportions of public funding from the USDA and state agencies flow to Black farmers who have traditionally been excluded due to documented and adjudicated acts of racism; scholar-activist Jillian Hishaw works to try to rectify various aspects of land injustice including heir's property issues. Food justice also includes reparations in the form of land grants to Black farmers based on the recognition that Black farmers have been systematically kept from owning land or had their land stolen. Activists Like Leah Penniman are seeking larger tracts of land through acts of reparations using tools like google maps. Detroit food activists like Erin Cole have taken matters into their own hands, turning abandoned lots into community gardens using resources from the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund.
Food justice includes the development of urban agriculture projects like Frontline Farming and neighborhood kitchens like Black Power Blueprint's Jiko Kitchen, or the Black Culinary Collective that demystify food production and model healthy ways of preparing food. Economic development initiatives like the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative create healthy grocery environments in low-income communities. Nutrition incentive programs themselves and especially cash matches for SNAP and WIC benefits spent on fruits and vegetables in Black-led farmers' markets like City Farms Markets organized by food activist Karen Washington can have a dramatic impact decreasing barriers to food access. Direct delivery of these foods eliminates transportation barriers. The Better Buggy in Atlanta is an example of a Black-led farm to doorstep organization.
Quotes
"Located in an art deco building that had once been a boat dealership, the Uhuru Jiko is our most ambitious project yet, to bring African economic and cultural life to this depressed commercial area, stop gentrification and to build a critical program for our community. Black Power Blueprint will build a bakery, café, and community commercial kitchen to serve as the headquarters for Uhuru Foods & Pies, one of the many economic institutions of Black Star Industries and the African People’s Education and Defense Fund around the U.S." - Uhuru Jiko Kitchen / Café - Black Power Blueprint
“To grow your own food gives you power and dignity. You know exactly what you’re eating because you grew it. It’s good, it’s nourishing, and you did this for yourself, your family and your community.” Karen Washington Karen Washington — Rise & Root Farm (riseandrootfarm.com)
"While mainstream efforts for reparations center financial compensation via legislation and litigation, social movements expand this conceptualization in order to address critical and yet often overlooked components of reparations. Equitable access to land and opportunities to heal from intergenerational trauma are two of these reparations demands that social movements prioritize." Jessica Gilbert, Rebekah Williams - gilbert_and_williams__2020__pathways_to_reparations_pre-print.pdf (ppgbuffalo.org)
“I think that there's a little bit of a misunderstanding that the main thing that's needed is education or convincing people to eat healthy. We found the reality is that folks usually have within their households or within their family the knowledge and the desire. We surveyed folks on this and the major barriers to eating these foods are transportation and cost. So we eliminate those barriers and people have no problem cooking what we provide.” Leah Penniman - Soul Fire Farm’s Leah Penniman Explains Why Food Sovereignty Is Central in the Fight for Racial Justice | Vogue
Metrics
“Black farmers peaked in number in 1920 when there were 949,889; today there are only 48,697; they account for only 1.4% of the country’s 3.4 million farmers (95% of US farmers are white) and own 0.52% of America’s farmland.”-Black US farmers dismayed as white farmers’ lawsuit halts relief payments | US news | The Guardian
”$5 billion would go to farmers of color, who have lost 90 percent of their land over the past century because of systemic discrimination and a cycle of debt”-Black farmers will receive $5 billion of the stimulus package - The Washington Post
Methods of Liberation
Reparative Land Justice-Reparations through land redistribution
How Soul Fire Farm Is Supporting Black Farmers On The Land And On The Hill
Farmer Cooperatives- cooperatives allow black organizations to pull their resources and organize for collective wellbeing.
A Co-op for Black farmers is thriving in northern Minnesota
Just Funding & Debt Cancellation from the USDA. -Black farmers were routinely and systematically denied loans, information, and access to the programs essential to survival in a capital-intensive farm structure
The USDA Is Set To Give Black Farmers Debt Relief. They’ve Heard That One Before : NPR
Food Hubs & Accelerators for Black Food Businesses
The “Dining Room” inside the Accelerator is the first African American food hub in Omaha
Cooperative Grocery Stores
In St. Louis, Tosha Phonix is Growing Food Justice
WIC, EBT funded CSA (community supported agriculture) Shares & EBT funded Food Deliveries.
CSA is a SNAP in the time of COVID
How Online Grocery Delivery Could Help Alleviate Food Deserts : The Salt : NPR
Farm to School, Farm to Prison, Farm to Hospital Programs- All expand access to fresh food for folks in institutions.
Glyen Holmes - Farm Aid Farmer Hero
Timelines of Equity
Freedom Farmers: Black Agriculture and the Origins of Food Justice
- 1881 -Booker T Washington founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute training black people in over 33 different trades that spanned agriculture, horticulture, livestock, and dairying; he later founded the first Black cooperative extension service in the nation.
- 1960’s The Nation of Islam held 13,000 acres in Georgia and Alabama and supplied food through the organization’s distribution arm, Salaam Agricultural Systems, which owned grocery stores and restaurants in predominantly Black neighborhood
- 1962 United Farm Workers, founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, united Filipino and Mexican workers in a movement that won rights for tens of thousands of farmworkers and paved the way for legislation guaranteeing basic worker rights to agricultural workers.
- 1966 the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund was founded to develop land-based resistance strategies including cooperative like the Freedom Quilting Bee Coop.
- 1969 the Black Panther Party launched the Free Breakfast for Children Program at a church in Oakland, California.
- 1969 Fanny Lou Hamer founds the Freedom Farm with “680 acres of affordable housing, community gardens, commercial kitchens, community kitchens, food preservation and preparation, cooperative purchases, and many acres of food crops”
- 1993 a small group of workers formed The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW, )a worker-based human rights organization recognized for its achievements in the fields of corporate social responsibility, community organizing, and modern-day slavery and other labor abuses common in agriculture.
- 1996 LaVia Campesina and brought the concept of food sovereignty to the public debate during the World Food Summit
- 2010 Good Food Purchasing Program developed by the Food Chain Workers Alliance to win fair wages and working conditions and end food worker exploitation
- 2012 Soulfire Farm, a reparations project was founded to redefine help black and Latinx folks' relationship with land.
- 2017-Maine voters pass first 'right to food' amendment in US
- 2021 New York city is the first city in the country to passes a bill to provide minimum working standards for app-based couriers
Changemakers
SOUL FIRE FARM – Ending racism and injustice in the food system
Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust (nefoclandtrust.org)
FrontLine Farming | Beyond Organic | Colorado
Home - F.A.R.M.S (30000acres.org)
DETROIT BLACK COMMUNITY FOOD SECURITY NETWORK
The Federation of Southern Cooperatives
Samin Nosrat’s list of Black farmers, chefs, writers, historians and more to follow on Instagram.
WANDA: Women Advancing Nutrition Dietetics and Agriculture
NATIONAL BLACK FOOD & JUSTICE ALLIANCE
Articles
A Reparations Map for Farmers of Color May Help Right Historical Wrongs | Civil Eats
Seven Ways to Fight for Food Justice – Food Tank
Shining a Light in Dark Places: Raising up the Work of Southern Women of Color in the Food System
REFRAMING FOOD HUBSFood Hubs,Racial Equity, and Self-Determination in the South
Building the Case for Racial Equity in the Food System by the Center For Social Inclusion
Decolonizing Regenerative Agriculture: An Indigenous Perspective - Bioneers
Young Farmers Racial Equity Toolkit
Pathways to reparations: land and healing through food justice
Economic and Community Development Outcomes of Healthy Food Retail
Battling Inequity in Food Systems with Entrepreneurship
Want to See Food and Land Justice for Black Americans? Support These Groups.
22 Individuals and Organizations Building Stronger Black Communities and Food Systems – Food Tank
Black US farmers dismayed as white farmers’ lawsuit halts relief payments | US news | The Guardian
Books
Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement by Monica M. White
Systematic Land Theft by Jillian Hishaw
Black Food Geographies by Ashanté M. Reese
Land Justice: Re-Imagining Land, Food, and the Commons by Justine M. Williams
Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land by Leah Penniman
Black, White, and Green: Farmers Markets, Race, and the Green Economy by Alison Hope Alkon
The Color of Food by Natasha Bowens
Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine One Plate at a Time by Adrian Miller
Building Houses out of Chicken Legs by Psyche A. Williams-ForKwame Onwuachi
The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty
Working the Roots by Michele E. Lee
Podcasts
Commons Groundswell - Agrarian Trust
22 of Karen Washington Podcasts Interviews | Updated Daily - OwlTail
All of the 20 Food Podcasts by Black Women (compiled by soulPhoodie)
Jillian Hishaw on Who Owns Our Farmland - The Whole Carrot
Film/Video
A Food Justice Story (Official Trailer)
Counter Space - VICE Video: Documentaries, Films, News Videos
A Growing Culture’s Hunger For Justice Series
Black Food Matters: Race and Equity in the Good Food Movement
Taste The Nation With Padma Lakshmi – The Gullah Way
Food, race and justice | Malik Yankini | TEDxMuskegon
The Lyle Center Presents: Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice
More
Questions for Research and Reflection:
What is the relationship between privilege, poverty, and food consumption?
How have black Americans created food security for themselves and their communities?
What resources could be leveraged to increase black access to land?
How has land access facilitated food security?
How can ending food apartheids improve educational outcomes for black students?
How do food manufacturers benefit from food apartheids?
Taking Action:
Consider your family's heritage, the areas your ancestors once lived, and whether there is historic harm to unwind in the area of food systems. Consider how you might invest your time, resources and agency in Black communities in food-related areas, e.g.:
- Buy produce from a Black-led Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm; donate CSA shares to Black families in your area
- Work with others to invest in bringing a mobile grocery van into a food desert in a Black community in your area
- Lobby for major retailers to bring a grocery store to a food desert in a Black community in your area
- Hire African American chefs just out of culinary school to cater business dinners; invest in their businesses
- Invest in culinary incubator projects benefitting Black communities
- Buy and donate land in Black communities to Black Land Trusts; invest in establishment of community gardens