“As a Black woman from a family of Black women, doing research for/about/with Black women, working for the good of Black women, this work holds a special place in my heart.”
Me!
Well I guess I should start with my story, huh? I won’t tell my life story, lol, but I’ll tell you how I got here.
I am a Black woman. I am from North Carolina. I was raised by a Black grandma, her sisters, and her mama. They all kept gardens and cacti. Do the Black women in y’all’s family have gardens? Do you have a garden? My folks loved a cactus lol. 🌵
I attended an HBCU: the ILLUSTRIOUS North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University 💙Aggie Pride!!💛 and earned my BS in Agricultural Economics and MS in Agricultural Education. My master’s thesis focused on the concept of inclusion in secondary agricultural education.
I taught high school agriculture…I loved my students but was unhappy where I worked. I left and became a substitute teacher in science classrooms and learned so much about teaching and found it rewarding. But I wanted to do more.
I went to Purdue University, and became 1 of 2 African American women in the department. Shout out to BGSA, MANRRS, and the BCC for helping me make it through. I had a really cool assistantship with the Mentoring@Purdue program, which kept me very busy. I found my dissertation topic, damn near failed my preliminary exams, performed well in my proposal meeting, interviewed five phenomenal Black women for my dissertation, defended Sept 18, 2019 (I’ll never forget that date), and deposited my dissertation Feb 2020.
I got to design and teach a class called Critical Perspectives in Agriculture that I hope to teach again. Topics discussed included environmental justice, LGBT+ in ag, and 1890 Land Grants. Manuscript is in preparation 😏
The panny hit but ya girl still found a job. I am now a postdoctoral researcher working with a bomb Black woman (#blessed) and a really nice (read: patient lol) research team. I relocated and now I see Black people in my neighborhood. 🙌🏾
I am still feeling a need to be in community with Black women and those who support us. Knowing that other Black women are looking for community made this even more important. Together we can do so much. And that is how Ag In Color was born.
In Solidarity,