Written by Adamaah Grayse, Food Justice Organizer with Grassroots Gardens of WNY & NYS Public Health Corp Policy Fellow, November 2023.
Buffalo has been celebrating Juneteenth for almost fifty years. In fact, we hold one of the largest celebrations in the United States. The addition of the Juneteenth Agricultural Pavilion has brought grounding to Buffalo’s Juneteenth celebration by introducing our relationship to agriculture to the conversation. The pavilion uplifts another aspect of our culture in addition to the traditional parades, vendors, and entertainment.
While many people understand that Juneteenth is the celebration commemorating emancipation from enslavement for African-Americans, it tends to stop there.
For this reason, I created an agricultural extension experience at the pavilion by creating a gallery walk of posters (which can be viewed below) for people to walk through, look at and read. Then, at an information table, I introduced them to the six seedling plants of the commodity crops that were grown by our ancestors. My intention was to help people connect with the vast and varied ways that European colonialists engaged in human trafficking to power the economic engine of agriculture and international trade to build their new world.
I wanted people to walk away understanding that:
- Specific African ethnicities were targeted for their skillset with particular crops.
- Some of the crops grown by our ancestors was more accepted as tender for trade as opposed to money or precious metals.
- A multi-million dollar, international agricultural industry was built off the backs of Africans without restitution, and this is the basis for the continued demand for reparations to be paid to their descendants.
Each of the posters below show: the origin of the crop, where it was produced, how it is used now, an illustration of the plant itself, different images of Confederate money used to spread propaganda about African-Americans enjoying their lives as slaves, some quotes attesting to how valuable our ancestors skills or the crops were for the enslavers, and the sources where I obtained this information.
I am hoping that this “mini-agricultural extension” presentation will be the beginning of our own little corner of Food For The Spirit’s website.
You can also click here to view a video of me describing the extension at the Juneteenth Celebration in Buffalo in 2023.
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