UPLIFT
Sacred Herbalism of Cuba and Haiti
In the African traditions of Lukumi and Vodou, illness is primarily seen as the disruption of the connection between the person and Nature. Soul force, or ase, can be found within the plants, imbuing herbal medicine with its power. Each December 24–25 in Haiti, the community gathers to make the herbal medicines that will restore the life force of the people in the year to come. Called pile fèy, this ceremony involves offerings for the lwa, singing, drumming, and pounding medicinal leaves in a large mortar to the beat of the songs. During the day the dry medicine is prepared, filling the space with spicy pungent dust that uplifts the power of the medicine makers. By night the liquid medicine is made by vigorously rubbing the leaves in water to sacred song.
In Haiti the houngan (traditional priest) makes offerings to the lwa as part of a medicine-making ceremony, called piley fèy.
Each orisa or lwa has a list of medicinal herbs and natural substances assigned to it and used to treat ailments related to particular areas of the body. For example, the Orisa Osun is said to govern the bloodstream and her sacred herbs are used to heal diabetes and anemia.32 The preparation of medicines, called ozain and omiero in Lukumi, involves singing to specific orisa while their associated herbs are crushed and the juice extracted. The ceremony enhances the power of the ewe (medicinal leaves) and the resulting infusion can be used to cleanse and refresh sacred objects, bathe individuals during initiation, and provide healing for physical and spiritual complaints. For example, the plant Tradescantia zebrina (wandering Jew) is a central ingredient in certain omieros for its spiritual power, and also has active compounds that purify the kidneys, ease colitis, and encourage menstruation.
Similarly, Haitian Vodou practitioners make spiritual baths that have both curative and spiritual elements. Practitioners generally prefer wild plants over cultivated ones, because they are believed to have more ase. Gatherers of plants leave a coin or other offering in the place where the fèy (leaves) are collected. Herbalists have knowledge of hundreds of potent plants, including Momordica charantia and Hamelia patens for measles and smallpox, Dysphania ambrosioides and Momordica charantia for parasites, and Vitex trifolia, Trichilia glabra, Alpinia speciosa, and Allophylus cominia for spiritual cleansing. The baths are either immersive or applied head-to-toe and repeated for a number of days, usually three or seven, sacred numbers in the religion. Spiritual baths can be applied to purify the home as well, the cleansing mixtures rubbed on walls and floors, then “swept” out using branches or long stemmed flowers. A specific spiritual bath applied only to the head, called Rogation in Lukumi or Lave Tet in Haiti, is said to alleviate depression, mental confusion, high blood pressure, and temper, having an overall cooling effect.
Air-drying herbs is the simplest method of preservation. Harvest bunches of leafy herbs and strip the leaves off the bottom inch of the stem for banding. Hang the bunches by the bands in a dry, well-ventilated place out of sunlight. In dusty and urban areas, it is best to cover the bunches with a paper bag to keep the herbs clean. Herbs can also be laid out on trays or screens for drying. Aim to complete the drying in four to seven days, so that volatile oils are not lost. Once leaves and flowers are crackly-dry, they can be stripped off the stem by hand and stored in paper bags or glass containers in a dark, dry place. The ideal drying temperature for leaves and flowers is 80° to 99°F (27–37°C). Roots and tubers require higher temperatures to dry, 120 to 140°F (50–60°C). You can also cut them into small pieces and dry in the oven.
Preparations for both dried and fresh herbs include:
Infusion. Infusion is a fancy word for “tea.” Combine 1 teaspoon of dry herb or 2 teaspoons of fresh herb per 1 cup (240 ml) of almost boiling water. Cover the mixture with a lid to prevent the volatile oils from escaping. Steep for 5 to 10 minutes, then strain out the herbs. Infusions can be taken hot or cold. A standard dose is 6 ounces (180 ml), three times per day.
Decoction. Roots, barks, and berries require more forceful treatment to extract their potent constituents. Add 1½ tablespoons of dried roots or 3 tablespoons of fresh roots to 3 cups (720 ml) of cold water. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes until the liquid is reduced by one-third. Strain out the plant parts and store the liquid covered in a cool place. A standard dose is 6 ounces (180 ml), three times per day.
Herbs hang to dry in the farm kitchen. Photo by Neshima Vitale-Penniman
Tincture. Tinctures are made by soaking the herb in vodka or rum to dissolve its active constituents. Combine 1 part chopped herb to 5 parts alcohol in a sterile glass jar, ensuring that the herb is covered. Shake well for one to two minutes then store in a cool, dark place for 10 to 14 days, shaking the jar every day or two. Strain out the herbs using a colander or wine press, then store the tincture in clean dark glass bottles. A standard dose is 1 teaspoon, two or three times a day, diluted in water or juice. Note that tinctures can also be made with glycerine for those who are avoiding alcohol.
Oils. Infusing an herb in oil dissolves its fat soluble constituents. To make a hot infused oil, combine 9 ounces (250 g) of dried or 18 ounces (500 g) of fresh herb with 3 cups (720 ml) of olive or sunflower oil. Stir the chopped herb and oil together in a glass bowl and double boil over a saucepan of water for two to three hours or in a slow cooker for two to three hours. Do not put the oil directly over the heat or it will burn—trust me, I’ve made that mistake! Allow the mixture to cool, and strain it through a cheesecloth. Similarly, cold infused oils are made by covering fresh or dried herbs with olive oil in a clear glass jar. Place the jar on a sunny windowsill for two to six weeks, then strain through cheesecloth. Store the infused oil in dark glass bottles. Oils can be rubbed on the skin three-plus times per day to relieve pain and promote healing.
An oil infusion of calendula and chickweed makes a curative base for salve.
Salve. Combining infused oils with solid fats creates a salve that can be applied to the lips or skin for healing and pain relief. Use a double boiler to melt the infused oil together with beeswax in a 4:1 oil:beeswax ratio. Alternatively, use shea butter or coconut oil instead of the beeswax at a 1:1 shea butter:infused oil ratio. Once melted, you can add vitamin E or rosemary oil to increase shelf life and prevent rancidity as well as essential oils for their aromatic gifts. Pour the mixture into small jars with lids and set aside to cool. Store in a dark place. Salves can be rubbed on the skin three-plus times per day.
Poultice. A poultice is a mixture of fresh or dried herbs applied directly to the skin to ease pain and draw impurities from wounds. Add just enough water to a pan to cover the bottom, then simmer the herbs for two minutes. Rub oil on the affected area to prevent sticking, then apply the hot herb to the skin. Bandage the herb securely in place using gauze and leave for two to three hours. Repeat as often as necessary.
Steam inhalation. Inhaling steam is a powerful way to clear respiratory ailments. Make an infusion of 1 ounce (28 g) of the herb in 4 cups (1 L) of water. Pour the infusion into a bowl, cover the head and bowl with a towel, close the eyes, and inhale the steam for 10 to 15 minutes or until the preparation cools.
Baths. A warm or cold infusion of herbs can be used to bathe the skin for medicinal and spiritual purposes. Offer prayers and rub the mixture into the skin from head to toe. Spiritual baths are more potent if the herb is not strained. An herbal bath can also be made by rubbing and crushing herbs in cold water. If bathing the eyes, add a pinch of salt to the infusion to prevent leaching of minerals from the eye.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Urban Farming
I grew up around a lot of violence. I lost a lot of friends. When there were drive-by shootings, I would get low to the ground and the smell of the earth meant I was safe.
—SOUL FIRE FARM ALUM, 2015
The Great Migration that carried 6 million of our people out of the rural Southeast of the US and into the urban North, Midwest, and West is often miscategorized as a voluntary exodus to exploit new economic opportunities. The truth is th
at our people were catalyzed to move because of segregation, land theft, racial terrorism, and lynching. Over 4,000 Black people were lynched in the South between 1882 and 1968. At the same time, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was colluding with white supremacist groups to maintain sharecropping by denying independent Black farmers the loans and relief to which we were entitled by law, leading to the loss of millions of acres of Black-owned farmland. By the end of the Great Migration in 1970, 80 percent of African Americans lived in cities.1 There was a trade-off for leaving the South; as playwright August Wilson wrote, “We were a land based agrarian people from Africa. We were uprooted from Africa and we spent 200 years developing our culture as black Americans and then we left the South. We uprooted ourselves and attempted to transplant this culture to the pavements of the industrialized North. It was a transplant that didn’t take. I think if we had stayed in the South we would have been a stronger people and because the connection between the South of the 20s, 30s, and 40s has been broken, it’s very difficult to understand who we are.”2
In the North, Black people confronted racism in other forms: discrimination in housing, employment, schools, and policing. The National Housing Act of 1934 institutionalized pre-existing housing discrimination. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) created “residential security maps” that ranked neighborhoods from A to D, listing areas from the most to least desirable for lending. The D neighborhoods were predominantly Black communities and were outlined in red, labeled too risky for mortgage support. These maps were used by public and private lenders to deny mortgages to Black people. Further, the FHA’s Manual of 1936 advocated deed restrictions to “prevent the infiltration of inharmonious racial groups” and to “prohibit the occupancy of properties except by the race for which they are intended.” These recommendations were in the same section that advised how to prevent “nuisances like pig pens.” Redlining led to lower property values, abandonment, vacancy, and decline in Black neighborhoods. When the GI Bill was enacted during World War II, veterans who wanted to buy homes in their own redlined neighborhoods were denied the zero-interest mortgages to which they were entitled. Consequently, white military families moved to the suburbs while Black families had to turn to predatory lenders or rent from slumlords.3
In the 1960s and 1970s amid steep urban decline, arson, and blight in our urban neighborhoods, courageous Black and Latinx farmers revived their agricultural traditions by establishing community gardens. Neighbors transformed trash-strewn lots into urban oases with the support of their churches and neighborhood associations. Urban farmers of color removed rubble, planted trees, installed vegetable beds, and built structures for community gatherings. For instance, we pay homage to Hattie Carthan, Black environmental activist, who coordinated the planting of over 1,500 trees in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of New York City in the late ’60s and ’70s. We also pay homage to Black growers John and Elizabeth Crews, who catalyzed subsistence farming in Detroit. We pay homage to Rufus and Demalda Newsome, elder leaders in the urban farming movement in Tulsa, and to all the other Black visionaries who helped us find our way home to land.
There are now an estimated 18,000 urban community gardens in the US, predominantly in neighborhoods once redlined. Today an overlay GIS map of New York City’s redlined districts and community gardens elegantly correspond.4 As Black and Brown people worked together to beautify their neighborhoods, city governments and white opportunists began to take interest. For example, in 1998 Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to put over 700 community gardens up for sale and was only stopped because of powerful grassroots resistance through the courts and civil disobedience. Under the guise of color-blindness, public and private sectors have facilitated gentrification, promoting a vision of low-income communities as the “urban frontier,” encouraging young, middle-class white people to act as urban “pioneers” and “homesteaders” by populating these communities building by building, block by block.5 These white “pioneers” have co-opted urban farming in many locations, attracting grants, media attention, and public influence denied to the Black founders of the movement.
For most of our community, the city is now home and we need to find our “liberation on land” amid the pavement. This chapter elucidates specific strategies for accessing land, rooftops, and sunny corners in urban spaces. It offers ideas for managing farming challenges specific to urban areas, including small growing area, contaminated water, insecure land tenure, and community support. This chapter uplifts a few of the current-day Black urban farmers in the US as well as the Afro-Cuban farming technologies that helped Cuba become almost entirely self-sufficient in fruit and vegetable production using urban spaces.
Hattie Carthan was a Black environmental movement pioneer. Her legacy is stewarded by Farmer Yon in Bed-Stuy, New York. Photo courtesy of Yonnette Fleming.
Laws and Land Access
For a few years our illegal chickens flew under the radar of the city. Albany had an ordinance that disallowed chickens and other livestock under the belief that they were “incompatible with urban life.” There was an exception for educational nonprofits, but no flexibility for residents trying to raise food for survival. We collaborated with three other neighbors with adjoining backyards to take down our fences and build a collaborative food landscape. All combined, there were two chicken coops, a goat pen, vegetable gardens, and mulberry trees. Our young children could roam far without ever having to cross a street. Unfortunately, code enforcement caught on and evicted the chickens. Many neighbors took the fight to city hall. After nine months of organizing, activists convinced the city council to allow backyard chickens in 2011. Sadly, the mayor vetoed the vote and the chickens could not return.
A small flock of hens is compatible with urban life.
UPLIFT
D-Town Farm
In 2006, 40 people came together to form the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN).6 Some of the key contributors included Baba Malik Yakini, Nefer Ra Barber, Kwamena Mensah, Kadiri Sennefer Ra, Babatunde Bandele, Aisha Ellis, Iythiyel Elqanah, Shakara Typer, Karanji Kaduma, and Tiffany Harvey. In just a decade DBCFSN has catalyzed a food policy council, cooperative grocery store, youth education program, and a 7-acre urban farm. For most of their history, the project had no outside funding, relying exclusively on sweat equity. DBCFSN now has 70 members who make decisions about the organization democratically.
DBCFSN took leadership in reclaiming some of the more than 90,000 vacant lots in Detroit for food production. They approached the city council in 2006 asking for 2 acres of land to start D-Town Farm. The city granted them a license agreement for those acres and later added 5 additional acres to the deal. DBCFSN arranged legal representation at no cost with the University of Michigan Economic Clinic to help negotiate the license. As Baba Malik explained, “We started out initially with two acres and we currently have seven acres—so it’s a pretty large project. We’re trying to stay focused and not have various locations around the city. Frankly, we don’t have the capacity to manage that. Even managing the seven acres we have now is challenging! We consider ourselves to be a model. Rather than trying to start gardens all around the city, what we’re doing is creating a learning institution where people who are interested in doing this work can come and learn various techniques and strategies that they can take back to their neighborhoods. So we see ourselves as a catalyst.”
D-Town Farm hires local residents to grow the food as well as engage collective work ethic to get tasks done on the farm. D-Town Farm sells their produce at farmers markets, restaurants, and grocery stores. One of their goals is to have locally grown options available at the stores where people normally shop. “Rumor has it that D-Town has the sweetest collard greens in Detroit,” offered Baba Malik. They grow other heritage crops like black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes, okra, and watermelon. Their growing practices are “in line with how our ancestors farmed and how most human beings farmed for the last several thousand years.”
In many cities these nuisance ordinances were created to specifically target immigrants and people of color who were more likely to be preserving agrarian practices. Whether you decide to abide by the law, skirt the law, or challenge the law, it is helpful to understand what restrictions apply to urban agriculture in your area. Before you invest substantial resources into your plot of earth, investigate the following questions:
Zoning. Does the zoning of the land permit agriculture? What “public nuisance” laws exist in your city? Are there “right to farm” laws in your county?
Greenhouses and high tunnels. Is a building permit required for greenhouses? Is there a size limitation? Note that some states categorize greenhouses as permanent structures and high tunnels as temporary structures, influencing how they are taxed.
Animal housing. Is animal agriculture permitted? Is a building permit required for chicken coops and other animal housing? How far away must animals live from residential buildings or property lines?
Rooftop and wall gardens. What building code requirements exist for a rooftop garden? Do rooftop gardens require permits? Is a permit required to grow plants on the exterior wall of a building?
Farming While Black Page 29
