IN-PERSON EVENT at Farm to People
With her new anthology, Black Earth Wisdom, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm and Farming While Black author, Leah Penniman reminds us that ecological humility is an intrinsic part of Black cultural heritage. While racial capitalism has attempted to sever our connection to the sacred earth for 400 years, Black people have long seen the land and water as family and understood the intrinsic value of nature.
MOFAD is thrilled to welcome Leah and Farm School NYC director Onika Abraham to Farm to People in Brooklyn for a conversation about the Black food justice activists who are reviving their ancestral and ancient practice of listening to the earth for guidance. Penniman makes clear that the fight for racial and environmental justice demands that people put our planet first and defer to nature as our ultimate teacher.
Copies of BLACK EARTH WISDOM by Leah Penniman are included in the cost of your ticket. You will be able to retrieve your book from our partners, BEM | books & more for signing at the event. Contact getintouch@bembrooklyn.com to order additional copies of Black Earth Wisdom or Farming While Black for signing at the event.
Food and drinks will be available for purchase from Farm to People Kitchen & Bar.
This is an in-person event. Tickets must be purchased online in advance.
LEAH PENNIMAN
Leah Penniman is a Black Kreyol farmer, author, mother, and food justice activist who has been tending the soil and organizing for an anti-racist food system for 25 years. She currently serves as founding co-ED and Farm Director of Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, New York, a Black & Brown led project that works toward food and land justice. Her books are Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land (2018) and Black Earth Wisdom: Soulful Conversations with Black Environmentalists (2023).
Find out more about Leah’s work at www.soulfirefarm.org and follow her @soulfirefarm on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
ONIKA ABRAHAM
Onika Abraham, Director of Farm School NYC, is a farmer and educator with more than 15 years of experience as a senior nonprofit manager and an MBA in marketing and entrepreneurship from City University of New York’s Zicklin School of Business. Previously she served as the Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Safe Horizon in 2010. She is one of the co-founders of Black Urban Growers and has helped organize three national Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conferences since 2010. Her commitment to this work continues in her efforts to recruit Farm School NYC students that reflect the diversity of New York City, especially those from low resource and socially disadvantaged communities, and help them achieve their professional farming goals.
Farm to People sources the tastiest fresh-picked food from farmers and makers who treat not only their land and their products, but also their employees, with utmost respect.
BEM | books & more is a literary destination at the intersection of food and Blackness. Established by two sisters in January 2021 as an online bookstore, we are proud to serve as a home for readers, writers, cooks, and eaters passionate about Black cultures in all their diversity. Taking an expansive approach to the nexus of food, literature, and culture, BEM celebrates Black food by bringing works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry for readers of all ages into conversation with cookbooks and culinary studies to explore how what feeds us defines us. Shop BEM in person at BRIC — 647 Fulton St in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Click here for hours and more details.