Strange Fruit: The Necroecology of Black Subsistence Farming

0:33 - My name is Ernest Lee Vines. I was born April 28, 1947 in Edgecombe county. And where we are sitting at right now, the old house back there, which is where I was born at, is still back there. 0:49 - And I always worked on the farm, but I had made my mind up that when I graduated I wanted to travel to places like from cities to cities. 0:54 - But when I got out of school, I traveled eight miles from Conetoe, North Carolina to Princeville, North Carolina and that’s where I met my wife. We got married back in 1975. We’ve been together since 1968. Her name is Roena Lloyd Vines. And I’m here— I’m here now (1:13). 1:15 - We, as Blacks, we don’t have a whole lot of land left in our generation gap. And if the ones who got land and stuff, if they could do something with it besides trying to sell it and get money. Try to pass it on and help somebody with it. You know? Don’t try to sell this and sell this cause like I said they not making no more land. They’ll make all of the money you want. 1:43 - To me, after I look at things and I think about the older way of doing things and that’s the only way that we are going to be able to survive out here. Is to work with each other, not by trying to work against each other. 1:56 - Just like this land out here. The white man came to me when I got ready to let the Church (Conetoe Family Life Center) take it over, they wanted to know why I would do that; why I didn’t let them have it. 2:08 - So, I went on and told him. I told him like this here - “don’t y’all think y’all got enough?”. I told him I think the land was in the right place. Go back to where it came from. It came from the Lord, God, Jesus Christ, go back to him. I said you don’t own the land that you got there. You don’t own that. (2:27) *transition* 2:28 - My name is Richard Earl Joyner. I am 66 years old. My role with farming goes back to my childhood. 2:39 - I grew up as a sharecropper’s son. If it wasn’t for the garden that my mom put together, then we could not eat. Because the person was not paying my father enough money to put food on the table for his family. But they were wise enough to grow everything they needed. That’s what I take from my parents. 3:00 - When the growth of food has more seriousness and deserves a place on the plate where it is there for sustainability of human beings. And then a place in human reinvestment back into the area where it is being produced in without an individual owning it. *transition* 3:25 - So our goal is no home is hungry. No child, in this area, can be at home and have a food deficit because these fields produce more produce than 200 families need. 3:55 - And so, because of how devastating this past of trauma has been to our community, we know that this is like 10 years for us. We know that we are moving to a sustainability model. And one of them was that we would move from a charity model to a justice model. 4:25 - This summer, our supported agriculture (CSA), has been up to the level where the CSA sustains our summer camp. Which means every child in the summer camp is paying for their summer camp and it is paying for everything they need for back to school. (4:53) 4:55 - So, I came into Ministry through a servant lens. Through a sacrificial-servant lens, not an economic lens. And so I know I am still sticking with the social-sacrificial lens. I think that as more of us do that, we’ll see these farms like this really increase. *end*