We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy

Novelist Baszile (Queen Sugar) explores the legacy of “Black and brown farmers” in this winning anthology of essays, poems, photographs, and interviews. Analena Hope Hassberg, a professor of ethnic studies at Cal Poly Pomona, examines farming as a “revolutionary act,” noting that enslaved Africans kept small garden plots on U.S. plantations and “often had higher vitamin, mineral, and protein levels than poor whites who also struggled to survive in the face of starvation.” Clif Sutton and his father, Dexter Faison, owners of Straw Hat Farms in Turkey, N.C., discuss their family’s farming legacy and the advantages of passing land from one generation to the next, as opposed to starting from scratch. Novelist and memoirist Clyde Ford details how discrimination against Black landowners by elected farm service committees in the South helped to fuel the civil rights movement, while Jim Embry, founder of Sustainable Communities Network, looks at how Indigenous agricultural traditions and communal structures can help fight climate change and racial inequality. Throughout, poems by Kevin Young, Joy Harjo, and others resonant with the themes discussed. With its attractive presentation and incisive blend of academic, creative, and real-world perspectives, this inspirational survey is a fitting tribute to Black farmers throughout history. Agent: Kim Witherspoon, InkWell Management. (Apr.)