Tameko Rowe has spent the majority of her life nurturing abundance all around her.
She was raised by a country mama who didn’t let the size of their home dictate the capacity of their garden. Produce flourished in their space and they preserved food through canning. Rowe’s upbringing influenced her own green thumb in adulthood. She started fermenting produce and harvesting herbs to make beauty products.
Modern day homesteading focuses on creating a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. As a stay-at-home mother of two in Maryland, Rowe joined a Facebook group called Black Women Homesteading in October to connect with kindred spirits who wanted the same way of life. What she gained was a nationwide sisterhood that’s more than 157,200 members strong. The group has exploded in popularity during its seven months existence, and Rowe has been taking notes while group members share their journeys about micro farming, foraging, upcycling, beekeeping, using renewable resources and other forms of land stewardship.
The group also gives her the space to share her own skills such as her recipe for fire cider, an herbal tonic hailed to boost immunity and aid in digestive health. Rowe recently posted a tender moment between her mother and her 4-year-old daughter planting tomatoes, corn, summer squash and other vegetables in small cups. Rowe’s daughter was practicing her phonics, spelling and reading on the sly while learning about seed identification with her grandmother. Becoming a Black woman homesteader has empowered three generations of Black women in Rowe’s family.
“There is great power in Black women conjuring what we need from the earth,” Rowe said. “We eat, heal and treat ourselves and our families’ ailments, but we also use the scraps, the manure and the dead stuff too. It all has purpose and meaning.”
The Black Women Homesteading group is part of a bi-monthly magazine and media platform called Black Tribe, which was founded by Dr. LaTatia Stroud, who goes by her legal Choctaw name Rain Angeni. She was encouraged by her daughter to create the group in August 2023. Its fast-paced growth was evidence that a space focusing on Black homesteading was needed at the time. Although the engagement was welcomed, the group quickly became difficult to manage for Stroud and her children. They were approving 10,000 to 12,000 people daily, with most of the membership coming from Texas, North Carolina and Georgia. For a group of people who have experienced multiple forms of racial trauma, Stroud believes homesteading can provide healing by allowing the Black community to reclaim a relationship that was once theirs.
“We are disconnected from the land not by choice. The land wasn’t taken from us more so than we were taken from the land,” Stroud said. “Then we were transported here onto stolen land and forced to try to carve a life out here even though we’ve been systematically held back.”
Stroud doesn’t blame anyone for not knowing how to work the land because that was her story while growing up in Chicago. Her parents were busy providing for their household so they made convenient meals like TV dinners. Stroud spent her childhood thinking potatoes came out of a Hungry Jack box and her knowledge of brussel sprouts was nonexistent. It wasn’t until she started experimenting with seeds and sewing in her late teens that she felt a calling to tend to the land. She started backyard gardening in the mid-90s. In 2017, she created a mini food forest while living alongside the Gullah Geechee people on Saint Helena Island in South Carolina. Now 57 and living in Las Vegas, Stroud has been working on her food preservation techniques while harvesting and drying herbs to make smudge sticks. Stroud said she is living by example for the next generation.
“The mindset that I want for my grandkids is that you have the soil. You have this land. You can feed yourself,” Stroud said. “You know how life works. You know how nature works. It’s not just you reading a science book, but you’re a part of it.”
Stroud believes people’s curiosity about what it means to homestead accelerated the growth of her Facebook group. Homesteading gets its name from the Homestead Act of 1862, which offered Americans 160 acres of undeveloped land for a small price tag. If the settler cultivated the land to the government’s liking within five years, they received a patent, or title, to the property. After the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment clarified citizenship for the formerly enslaved, homesteading became an opportunity for African Americans to plough a foundation of freedom. Thousands migrated West to farm their own lands, build homes and schools and – in several cases – Black colonies that became symbols of economic success. The nation’s oldest Black homestead, Nicodemus, Kan., was established by six African American entrepreneurs in 1877. It was home to a general store, churches, the county’s first public school as well as multiple other establishments.
The Homesteading Act came to a close in 1979, but the term itself has morphed into a catch-all concept promoting multiple forms of self-sufficiency. While it may look different than it did traditionally, Stroud said this current resurgence in homesteading is about Black people creating a sustainable lifestyle while detoxing themselves from a culture that praises overworking. Stroud said hustling for the man can distract us from our true calling.
“So many of us have jobs where we’re so focused on paying bills, making ends meet and making the employers happy that the real work that was set in motion within us before we were here never really gets tended to,” Stroud said. “I know my purpose is to write, to share knowledge and be a steward of the environment.”
While curiosity lures aspiring homesteaders to the group, it’s the comradery and a reservoir of resources that keeps them in this sisterhood. They hype each other up as they post about their dreams and successes. A Houston woman imagines a rainbow-colored food forest in her backyard. A grieving widow’s hope was renewed after members inspired her to start gardening carrots, cucumbers, green onions, peppers and flowers. A city girl who knew little about farming shows off her harvest and livestock on her family’s land.
Stroud and her team of moderators and administrators keep the group’s educational materials stocked up. A featured section functions like a virtual commune where members can find land for sale, barter or trade goods, plan in-person meetups, shop with Black-owned businesses, find grants for their homesteads and search services from lenders, attorneys and realtors. Members can find about 30 PDFs in the files section of the group educating them about soapmaking, off-grid projects, medicinal herbs, taking care of livestock and other matters. Free workshops on how to apply for federal farm loans, entrepreneurship and other topics are a regular occurrence.
There are multiple ways to enjoy the homesteading lifestyle, Stroud believes your spirit will know how you want to tend to the land.
“For me, joy is the measure of success. You can be a successful homesteader if what you’re doing is bringing you joy,” Stroud said. “Not everybody is gonna get chickens and cows or try to do a garden. Some people are scared of bugs and snakes. That’s not their thing. But whatever you can do, do it in a way so you can say, ‘Wow, that makes me feel good.’”
Getting into the homesteading game requires a shift in mindset. Millennials who already feel both priced out and worn out by the bidding wars of the homebuying process may feel too intimidated to purchase land. Then there’s the risk of accidentally settling down in a sundown town — predominantly white areas known to be unwelcoming to Black people.
Group members are pushing through those fears together, Stroud said. They are dabbling in alternative forms of land ownership. A featured post geared towards members who are seriously interested in splitting purchasing costs by building micro communities received more than 1,000 comments. The sisterhood swarmed in to help a woman who posted about being harassed and stalked by her white neighbors. The comment section overflowed with advice on how to add more security to her homestead and which national human rights organizations to contact.
Those who were taken from the village are seeking to rebuild it through homesteading. Stroud sees more micro communities and communes being built in the future. She is expanding her role by developing a Facebook group for Black men. In April, she’s publishing a traveler’s guide pointing explorers to Black-owned ranches, farms, markets and vineyards.
While envisioning the future, Stroud mentioned a stereotype that claims Black people can’t work together.
“We’re gonna prove that wrong,” she said. “We can change that mindset to one that says ‘No, we do take care of each other.’ And with that mindset is going to come charitable hearts, a sense of community and love and growth.”
Source: al.com
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