Black Culture is Agriculture

After the emancipation of black people, black people were promised that they would be given “40 acres and a mule”. After 100's of years of being physically forced to work someone else's land for no funds, black people would finally have the opportunity to own land in a country that they built. However, this promise did not come to fruition. To this day, black people are still fighting for a seat at the farming table. A movement has started to get black people back into farming, and we couldn’t be more excited about it.

Black people have been advocating and fighting for the right to own land since slavery. Owning land meant that your family could have food and work. It meant that property could be passed down from generation to generation. No one knew this better than civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. In the late 1960’s, she started the Freedom Farm Cooperative. She purchased 40 acres of land in Mississippi to give the power back to local black farmers and sharecroppers who were often only able to work for white landowners.

The cooperative lasted until the late 1970’s and during that time many black people were able to join. The lesson learned was that if no one was going to help us; we were going to make a way ourselves, and that message rings loud if not louder today.

Fast forward to now, and young black farmers are entering the scene and reclaiming what was rightfully theirs.

Here at Hamama, we believe that Black History should be learned and appreciated. The best way to celebrate and appreciate black history is to support black endeavors and business. Here is a list of black owned farmers that you should support:

Soul Fire Farm

Black Farmers Collective

Rise and Root Farm

Mothers Fines Turban Farms

Black Food Justice 

Another way to support the black farmers movement is to support the Justice For Black Farmers Act which was introduced by Senator Cory Booker. According to BlackFoodJustice.org, the Black Farmer’s Act “will enact policies to end discrimination within the USDA, protect remaining Black farmers from losing their land, provide land grants to create a new generation of Black farmers and restore the land base that has been lost, and implement systemic reforms to help family farmers across the United States.” To support this Act, contact your local senators and tell them to support this bill. You can click here to locate your senator.

As James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” We know the history and the facts, and now is the time to turn our knowledge into action.