Urban Agriculture & Activism
Lessons from Detroit
Introduction
I started a garden in the summer of 2020, but I’d been planning one for years. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, my family and I grew squash, melons, beets, peppers, tomatoes, and herbs as a way to pass time, but also to have access to fresh produce when it was needed. What the garden represented for us was an opportunity to exercise some amount of agency over the foods we consumed within a food system that did not recognize this as a basic right for everyone. It had been my observation of this disparity that sparked my interest in gardening years prior.
At 13 I became a student of an exorbitantly wealthy, predominantly white institution. Still, I was the son of an educator in a predominantly black and low-income district of Cleveland. I resented the contrast between receiving catered meals prepared by chefs in the school cafeteria while simultaneously distributing bagged meals to families experiencing food insecurity. I understood that while some supermarkets lined their isles with unblemished products, whole neighborhoods relied on corner stores that could only sell highly processed calories. As a student, I learned how this systemic failure is interconnected with the history of race and class in this country (and globally as well, but that is not the focus here.). More specifically, the country's history of stealing land from black farmers (indigenous people as well, but again not the focus), housing segregation, employment discrimination, and violence against black business ownership, all culminating in today’s environment where poor families, especially black, often live in a state of insecurity and dependency on a system that does not recognize their moral worth.
Suddenly, our garden had become more than just a hobby. It was acting in opposition to a set of conditions prescribe to my family, and even more so to people within my community. It was an alternative that painted a clearer vision of what a transition towards food sovereignty might look like. But this wasn’t activism.
My name is Isaiah Moore. While this is my personal story, it is by no means unique. Across the nation and throughout history black farmers have used land, water, and sunlight to build autonomy within their communities, and develop the capacity to make decisions about their own food. In this project, I will attempt to share one inspiring example with you.
Research Question
In the following pages, I attempt to illustrate the similarities between urban farming as it is commonly practiced in black communities and historical movements which we often identify as transformative activism. There are many questions you may ask as you proceed, but one that has guided this process has been this:
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"Should urban agriculture be understood as a form of activism that is different from the mass movements of the past yet equally transformative in its vision?"
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I use the city of Detroit, Michigan as an example for both its large farming community and impressive history of radical activism in the ’60s and ’70s. This project is not, however, an exhaustive assessment of either of these subjects. 6 weeks were not enough time to fully examine the history of activism in the city nor were sufficient to detail to what extent urban agriculture addresses food insecurity, but there is available literature on both issues. This project sets its bounds on illustrating the connections between urban farmers today and activism then.
Data and Tools
To achieve this, I utilize digital tools that I have learned about this summer, specifically text analysis in Rstudio. By analyzing text from contemporary farming organizations and literature from activists in the past I hope to uncover parallels. The synthesis of this work is presented on the last page where a speech from prominent voice Grace lee Boggs is made interactable with annotations that show how her words connect to today’s farmers.
As you explore this site understand that I am not providing an authoritative opinion on any of the people, places, history, or connections presented. They reflect my interpretation of the given material and reveal connections that I believe are important and try to bring forward. A project like this is intended to be collaborative such that people can contribute further opinions and challenge existing ones. What I hope is gained, is simply an opportunity to explore our relationship to activism and struggle in a way that may not receive a lot of public attention. I believe it is important to recognize that we live in a moment in history that is equal in its capacity for transformational change as the earlier periods discussed.