An anthology of essays, poems, photographs, quotes, conversations, and first-person stories. We Are Each Other’s Harvest elevates the voices and stories of Black farmers and people of color, celebrating their perseverance and resilience, while spotlighting the challenges they continue to face. Natalie is the author of Queen Sugar, which has been adapted for television by and co-produced by Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey. Her new non-fiction book, We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land & Memory, is forthcoming from HarperCollins (April 2021). Natalie has had residencies at the Ragdale Foundation, VCCA, Hedgebrook, and Djerassi where she was the SFFILM and Bonnie Rattner Fellow. Her non-fiction work has appeared in National Geographic, Lenny Letter, The Bitter Southerner, O, The Oprah Magazine, and numerous anthologies. She has taught fiction at Saint Mary’s College in the MFA Program and is on Sierra Nevada College’s MFA Faculty. She is a current resident at SFFILM and member of the SF Writers’ Grotto.
Excerpt
Ancestral Vibrations Guide our Connection to the Land We are the seeds of our
ancestors’ dreams
(this is the unedited version of the essay submitted October 15, 2019 by Jim Embry to We Are Each Other’s Harvest by Natalie Baszile published by Harper Collins April 2021)
My Beginnings
As far back as I can remember during my childhood in Richmond, Kentucky, my mother, Jean, always planted a big edible garden in our backyard along with a beautiful and diverse flower garden in the middle. These garden areas as I recall were also full of honeybees, wasps, bumble bees, praying mantises, many types of butterflies and birds and even grasshoppers for us to bury in the ant hill. Since our bounty was so full it was quite acceptable for my brother, Richard, sister, Marsha, and me to pull and eat tomatoes from the vine or carrots right from the ground to satisfy our taste as long as we did not waste anything. On most weekends when we visited our maternal grandmother Parolee’s farm or nearby farms of extended family members, we would bring even more delicious food goodies home from picking in the fields or foraging in the wooded areas. I grew up experiencing that the “great outdoors”was our family farms which contained pastures of crops and animals to tend; fruit orchards and berry patches to pick from; ponds and creeks to swim and fish in; wooded areas and thickets with trees to climb; brambles to get caught in; squirrels, deer and rabbits to hunt; and night darkness with lightening bugs to chase and stars to wish on. We loved being in the “country” as we called these sacred green spaces with so many black faces of loved ones.¹
Even when my family moved North to the Cincinnati, Ohio area in 1959, as so many African American families had been doing since the Civil War ended, we still had a backyard garden that was shared with neighbors who also migrated from somewhere in the South. For several summers my brother² and I were sent back “down home” during the summer to spend several weeks on the farm of our Aunt Bessie and Uncle Andrew who were like second parents to us. It was during these weeks of working on the farm that I began to think and see that our family members who were small farmers seemed to know everything and could do everything. They could not only work in the fields to tend the animals and crops, but they seemed to know everything about the flora and fauna all around us. They knew how to use their hands to fix anything and everything that needed attention. They could read the weather of days ahead, sew clothing and make quilts, build barns and houses, mix up herbal remedies, prepare delicious meals and tell great stories.
On our return trip back home from summer on the farm, our uncle’s pickup truck, that we road in the back of in those days, was always loaded down with various items from the farm--green beans, corn, tomatoes, June apples and peaches, greens, chowchow relish, eggs, country ham and so much more. Back then it wasn't called local food or slow food but rather it was just this amazing diversity and deliciousness of food that came from our family farms. We didn't use any pesticides or very few and I had no clue that what we were doing back then is what we now call organic gardening. It was just the way of farming--using animal manures, cover crops, plant diversity and pasture rotation-- that was passed down from the elders who were also reading and applying the bulletins of George Washington Carver. For most all my life I have felt a closeness with the land, what it produced, those who worked the land and the natural world around it.
¹In recent years I have been labeled as being “black and green” as if being close to the land and caring for the natural world was a white thing.
²My sister Marsha died in 1952 because the segregated hospital did not give her the proper care in a timely manner for her pneumonia condition. Our mother experienced a “nervous breakdown” and spent time on the farm with her mother to heal from the trauma of losing her only daughter. Inspired by my mother’s healing, I have spent many years providing therapeutic horticulture programs to groups that serve “women at risk” as outlined in these articles: Greenhouse 17 combines gardening, business and healing for survivors of domestic violence, www.kentucky.com/living/home-garden/article44613195.html; and From family's farm land, Jim Embry brought