The 225th recipient is Rosemary June of @blackfarmerscollective in Seattle, WA.
Rosemary writes, “I became a farmer because the material conditions of African peoples, throughout the diaspora here on stolen Salish land, need to be changed. I joined the Black Farmers Collective in particular, because I personally need to do that work around other Africans who wanted to do something similar. Healthy food, clean water, dignified shelter, etc. – everyone deserves to have their basic needs met. But there is a clear disparity, when it comes to those basic needs, between Africans and everyone else on Turtle Island (besides the Indigenous people of this land). There is so much more work to do until we even begin to make headway, but it is good to be able to provide community, Africans in particular, with access to healthy food. It is good to be able to expand these farming skills within myself, so that I can utilize them in revolutionary organization moving forward.
True care of one’s community (or community defense) that is both sustainable and radical (grasping at the root of an issue) requires a certain body of revolutionary organization. Farmers will be an indispensable appendage of said body. On a personal level, farming with BFC has contributed to how I view the entire imperialist world around me. We are constantly propagandized to believe the only way to survive and thrive is to do so by having an exploitative relationship with the land, the water, and the people around us. But farming with BFC has taught me (and so many others) that we are a part of nature, not separate from it. More importantly, if we want to change our world for the better, we need only to roll up our sleeves, dig down into the dirt, plant a seed, and cultivate its growth.”