On America: We Are Each Other’s Harvest and the Legacy of Black Farmers

In Conversation

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  Natalie Baszile

  Natalie Baszile

  Natalie Baszile is the author of the novel Queen Sugar, which was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2014, longlisted for the Crooks Corner Southern Book Prize, nominated for an NAACP Image Award, and adapted for television by writer/director Ava DuVernay and co-produced by Oprah Winfrey for OWN. Baszile holds a M.A. in Afro-American Studies from UCLA and is a graduate of Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers. She lives in San Francisco.

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  Melony Edwards

  Melony Edwards

  Melony Edwards is a first-generation farmer. Her ancestors left their agricultural past after emancipation, seeking a better life in the North away from the fields of sorrow that they had grown to know. They were part of what is known as the Great Migration.

  Well over a century later, Melony Edwards began her journey to reclaim farming on her own terms. After completing degrees in culinary arts and hospitality, and working in all facets of foodservice, Edwards began wondering “where does our food come from? And why are there no visible Black farmers at the local farmers market?” Edwards found that gaining access to entry-level farming training in the rural landscape was exclusive, but she was determined to learn agricultural skills outside of her urban setting. Edwards’ journey landed her on a 20 acre mixed vegetable farm on rural Whidbey Island, WA where she immersed herself in small-scale agricultural practices. Edwards spent three years there advancing to Farm Manager. She then spent a season at Calypso Farm in Alaska and is now back in WA embarking on her own farming business focused on seed growing, natural dyeing and fiber arts.

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  Clyde W. Ford

  Clyde W. Ford

  Clyde W. Ford is an award-winning author of 13 works of fiction and non-fiction. Born in New York City, he’s also a psychotherapist, mythologist, and sought-after public speaker. His book The Hero with an African Face garnered critical acclaim as “picking up where Joseph Campbell left off,” and it has been the basis of teaching African mythological concepts to Black screenwriters. Clyde’s the recipient of the 2006 Zora Neale Hurston-Richard Wright Award in African American Fiction and a finalist for the 2020 Hurston-Wright Award in Nonfiction, and numerous other awards. He’s been a featured guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show, National Public Radio, C-SPAN/BookTV, and numerous television and radio programs. Clyde’s written opinion columns for the Seattle Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and the History News Network. He’s an on-staff opinion columnist for Crosscut, the Pacific Northwest’s premier independent news magazine and also a speaking fellow for Humanities Washington, an NEH affiliate in the state. Clyde lives and works in Bellingham, Washington.

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  Marvin Frink

  Marvin Frink

  After graduating high school, Marvin Frink joined the military to provide for his family and to help serve his country. Dedicating 15 years of service, including deployment to fight for his country, Marvin found himself dealing with anxiety. His father noticed he was suffering with PTSD and introduced him to farming.

  Using farming and working with the cattle on a daily basis helps with the transition from military life to civilian life. After the passing of his father, Marvin continued the dream his father had for him of becoming a cattleman.

  Brairwood Cattle Farm is a first generation cattle farm owned and operated by veteran Marvin Frink and his lovely wife Tanisha Frink. After serving honorably in the U.S. Army, his father (the late Reverend Kirby Frink) saw that Marvin was suffering from PTSD and knew that farming and raising cattle would help. Living out his father’s wishes, Marvin is now grazing a good healthy herd of Black Angus cattle near Raeford, North Carolina.

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  Michael Twitty

  Michael Twitty

  Michael Twitty is a food writer, independent scholar, culinary historian, and historical interpreter personally charged with preparing, preserving, and promoting African American foodways and its parent traditions in Africa and her Diaspora and its legacy in the food culture of the American South.  Michael is a Judaic studies teacher from the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area and his interests include food culture, food history, Jewish cultural issues, African American history and cultural politics. Afroculinaria will highlight and address food’s critical role in the development and definition of African American civilization and the politics of consumption and cultural ownership that surround it.