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![In honour of #juneteenth we are turning the spotlight on @leahpenniman - a Black Kreyol farmer, mother, soil nerd, author, and food justice activist from @soulfirefarm in Grafton, NY. Swipe to read, or read the caption below:
There’s an astonishing essay by Leah Penniman called “Black Gold”, which appears in the 2020 anthology @allwecansave : Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. The essay begins with a teenager, Dijour Carter, refusing to get out of a van as it pulls up and parks at Soul Fire Farm in New York. Why? He doesn’t want to get his sneakers dirty. Penniman says, “Almost without exception, when I ask Black visitors to the farm what they think of when they see the soil, they respond with ‘slavery’ or ‘plantation’...for many of our ancestors, freedom from terror and separation from the soil were synonymous.”
But Dijour eventually joins his peers, taking off his shoes and finally allowing his feet to touch the soil. Penniman then says:
“Dijour, typically stoic and reserved, broke into tears during the closing circle at the end of that day. He explained that when he was very young, his grandmother had shown him how to garden and how to gently hold a handful of soil teeming with insects. She had died years ago, and he had forgotten these lessons. When he removed his shoes on the tour and let the mud reach his feet, the memory of her and of the land traveled from the earth, through his soles, and to his heart. He said that it felt like he was ‘finally home.’”
On June 19, 1865, slaves in Galveston, Texas were given the news that they were freed by then-president Abraham Lincoln. In the US, Juneteenth is a necessary "Second Independence Day", so today we honour the deeply sacred and spiritual connection Black people originally had to land and nature, and we recognize the horrific and violent ways colonialism and capitalism exploited, perverted, and destroyed that connection. True freedom means living in reciprocity and reverence with the nature, and we continue to work toward a world that makes it safe and life-giving for Black people everywhere to reconnect with the lands they call home.
[Image credit: Leah Penniman]](https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.29350-15/448668202_820086130055298_8951839285788953426_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=ad14xCvZd2oQ7kNvgG2Gg6Z&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AUpBDPLxQGKQEHC7ZCiuDJt&oh=00_AYBf1n6QVp3W48qj0xlPZfBvDLsdixObS06tabmPf3qMlw&oe=6795EADB)
