Honoring Black Heroes

 

RECOGNIZING BLACK HISTORY: BLACK PEOPLE WHO CHANGED THE COURSE OF MODERN AGRICULTURE.

Franklinton Farms operates the land with intention and bases its best practices on those passed down from generation to generation of oppressed communities who farmed brilliantly.

We need to start by saying that our respect for the land includes the Indigenous peoples who stewarded this Place long before us. We acknowledge our land as the historic and modern territory of the Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, Ojibwe, Peoria, Potawatomi, Wyandotte, Miami, Cherokee, and Seneca peoples.

We also acknowledge the oppressive history of agriculture in this country that includes enslavement of Black peoples for several hundred years, disrupting any sense of the proper cost of farmed goods, and establishing white peoples’ ownership of land and capital. We are all still benefiting from agricultural knowledge that arrived with the enslaved peoples.

Finally, we readily acknowledge that some of our Farm Gardens used to be homes for Franklinton families that became vacant lots.

We reckon with all of these critical histories as we farm, and hope our presence on the land honors the lives of the many people who have come before us.

 

Sustainable Agriculturist - George Washington Carver

 
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Dr. George Washington Carver was born one year after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by the people who previously enslaved his mother. They taught him to read and write and, as he was frail and couldn’t work the fields frequently, the mother of the house taught him household chores and gardening.

At a young age, Carver took a keen interest in plants and experimented with natural pesticides, fungicides and soil conditioners. He became known as the “the plant doctor” due to his ability to discern how to improve the health of local gardens, fields and orchards.

He overcame financial, geographical and social struggles to secure his education, eventually earning a master of science degree. He received many job offers but settled on a position at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) under the directorship of Booker T Washington.

In Alabama, Dr. Carver became intimately acquainted with the plight of the Black southern farmer. His arrival was timely, as the abused soil of the South lay in ruins from years of over-farming cotton, made worse by the hunger and malnutrition experienced by the Black and poor white communities following the Civil War.

“Wherever soil is wasted, the people are wasted... A poor soil produces only a poor people.” 

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Dr. Carver’s top priority in overcoming these issues was to return nutrients to the soil.

The problems? Many farmers could not afford the animals needed to produce enough manure to cover the soil, and also cotton was one of the crops that would give them the best financial return (even as it depleted the soil more and more) and a lot of Black farmers were in terrible positions due to share-cropping and other financial burdens placed on them since becoming free .

Dr. Carver had to think through the best way to help the farmers and the land while also convincing them to give his methods a try. He achieved this through a huge series of communications that they understood and that made sense to them.

“Start where you are with what you have. Make something of it. Never be satisfied”

His methods are at the core basis of sustainable farming today:

  • Rotate crops with others that would replenish the soil with nutrients

  • Use cover crops between seasons that helped fix the soil

  • Compost old food scraps and other waste to make fertilizer

Testing his methods out on a one-half acre plot of Tuskegee land, Carver increased the yield of sweet potatoes in a few years from 40 bushels to 266 bushels.

He realized the acceptance of new crops by farmers would only occur if there was a financial benefit from growing them. It was from this basic understanding that he devoted his laboratory time to developing alternative uses for peas, sweet potatoes, soybeans and most famously, the peanut. 

By separating the fats, oils, gums, resins and sugars, he went on to find many uses for the lowly peanut. In fact, he developed more than 300 new uses for the humble legume. Recipes ranged from peanut lemon punch, chili sauce, caramel, peanut sausage, mayonnaise and coffee. 

From sweet potatoes, he developed flours, starches, sugar, a faux coconut, vinegar, synthetic ginger, chocolate and non-foods such as stains, dyes, paints and writing ink.

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As an agriculturalist and scientist, Dr. Carver was a visionary and a man far ahead of his time. His work in developing regionally integrated, sustainable food systems should act as an example for all of us striving toward similar goals.

Dr. Carver’s research gained him much worldwide acclaim. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were a few of his many fans. His humanitarian efforts were well documented and he received much recognition for his selfless acts to help others.

“It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobiles one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank that counts. These mean nothing. It is simple service that measures success.”

Dr. George Washington Carver died on January 5, 1943, and is buried on the campus at Tuskegee. Carver contributed his entire life savings to establish a research institute at Tuskegee.

Upon his death, Franklin D. Roosevelt sent this message, “All mankind are the beneficiaries of his discoveries in the field of agricultural chemistry. The things which he achieved in the face of early handicaps will for all time afford an inspiring example to youth everywhere.”

 
 
 
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DONATE TO THE BLACK FARMER FUND

A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION COMMITTED TO BUILDING A RACIALLY JUST FOOD SYSTEM.

https://givebutter.com/BlackFarmerFund

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