Sowing Abolition: Reimagining Agricultural Education in the Afterlife of Slavery
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.v67i2.3292Keywords:
Abolition, Justice, Decolonial pedagogy, Anti-Blackness, Food justiceAbstract
Educational practices around agriculture and food must reckon with the enduring legacy of slavery and racial oppression in the food system. This manuscript explores how agricultural and food-based education can be taught with the legacy of slavery in mind and envisions what an abolitionist agricultural education might entail. Blending scholarly analysis with an activist orientation, I draw on critical race theory, food justice scholarship, and decolonial thought to argue that teaching food and farming cannot be taught independently from historical and ongoing structures of anti-Black racism and colonialism. Key thinkers such as Sylvia Wynter, Christina Sharpe, Frank Wilderson, Frantz Fanon, and Walter Rodney provide a theoretical framework for understanding how Black experiences, knowledge, and struggles inform a transformative pedagogy. I articulate an abolitionist agricultural education as one that centers Black and Indigenous epistemologies, addresses the afterlife of slavery in contemporary food injustice, and engages youth in civic action through school-based and community gardening.
Downloads
References
Agyeman, J., & Boone, K. (2022). The black commons: A framework for recognition, reconciliation, and reparations. Sacred Civics, 58–70. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003199816-6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003199816-6
Althoff, L., & Reichardt, H. (2024). Jim Crow and Black economic progress after slavery. https://lukasalthoff.github.io/jmp/althoff_jmp.pdf. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjae023
Armstrong, C. (2020). Black foodways and places: The didactic epistemology of food memories in the WPA narratives. Slavery & Abolition, 42(3), 610–631. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2020.1861910
Ballard, P. J., Cohen, A. K., & Littenburg-Tobias, J. (2017). Action civics for promoting civic development: Main effects of program participation and differences by project characteristics. American Journal of Community Psychology, 58(3-4), 377–390. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12103. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12103
Barra, M. P. (2023). Plotting a geography of paradise: Black ecologies, productive nostalgia, and the possibilities of life on sinking ground. Transforming Anthropology, 31(1), 15–28. https://doi.org/10.1111/traa.12243. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/traa.12243
Blaisdell, B. (2005). Seeing every student as a 10: Using critical race theory to engage white teachers’ colorblindness. International Journal of Educational Policy Research & Practice, 6(1), 31–50.
Blazar, D. (2024). Why Black teachers matter. Educational Researcher, 53(8), 450–463. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X241261336. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X241261336
Blevins, B., LeCompte, K. N., Riggers-Piehl, T., Scholten, N., & Magill, K. R. (2021). The impact of an action civics program on the community and political engagement of youth. The Social Studies, 112(3), 146–160. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00377996.2020.1854163
Bristol, T. (2015, April 28). Black male teachers: There aren’t enough of them. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/04/28/black-male-teachers-there-arent-enough-of-them.
Broad, G. M. (2016). More than just food: Food justice and community change. University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520287440.001.0001
Carney, J. (2011). In the shadow of slavery: Africa’s botanical legacy in the Atlantic world. University of California Press.
Chapman, T. K., & Donnor, J. K. (2015). Critical race theory and the proliferation of U.S. charter schools. Equity & Excellence in Education, 48(1), 137–157. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2015.991670
Chevez, N. (2023, July 28). College board responds to comparisons between its AP course and Florida’s Black history curriculum. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/27/us/college-board-ap-african-american-studies-florida-curriculum/index.html.
Combahee River Collective. (1977). The Combahee River Collective statement. In B. Smith (Ed.), Home girls: A Black feminist anthology (pp. 264–274). Women of Color Press.
Costello, M. (2023). On the food of the West Virginia mine wars. In W. Awry, (Ed.), Nourishing resistance: Stories of food, protest, and mutual aid. (1st ed., p. 56–64). PM Press.
Danis, L. (2023). Queer potlucks offer food for capitalist critique and collective action. In W. Awry, (Ed.), Nourishing resistance: Stories of food, protest, and mutual aid. (1st ed., p. 102–106). PM Press.
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2017). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York University Press.
Diaz, J. M., Warner, L. A., & Webb, S. T. (2018). Outcome framework for school garden program development and evaluation: A Delphi approach. Journal of Agricultural Education, 59(2), 143–165. https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.2018.02143. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.2018.02143
Dumas, M. J. (2016). Against the dark: Antiblackness in education policy and discourse. Theory Into Practice, 55(1), 11–19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2016.1116852
Duncan, K. (2020). ‘That’s my job’: Black teachers’ perspectives on helping black students navigate white supremacy. Race Ethnicity and Education, 25(7), 978–996. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2020.1798377. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2020.1798377
Fanon, F. (1961). The wretched of the earth. Grove Press.
Fanon, F. (1952). Black skin, white masks. Grove Press.
Frank, T. J., Powell, M. G., View, J. L., Lee, C., Bradley, J. A., & Williams, A. (2021). Exploring racialized factors to understand why Black mathematics teachers consider leaving the profession. Educational Researcher, 50(6), 381–391. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X21994498
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Bloomsbury Academic.
Freshour, C., & Williams, B. (2023). Toward “total freedom”: Black ecologies of land, labor, and livelihoods in the Mississippi Delta. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 113(7), 1563–1572. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2022.2103501
Gallavan, N. P. & Bowles, F. A. (2012). School-community gardening: Learning, living, earning, and giving. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 24(3), 13–16.
Garth, H., & Reese, A. M. (2020). Black food matters: An introduction. In Garth, H., & Reese, A. M. (Eds.), Black food matters: Racial justice in the wake of food justice. (1st ed., p. 1–28). University of Minnesota Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv182jtk0.3
GENYOUth. (2020, May 13). GENYOUth national survey finds American teens care about food and the environment. https://genyouthnow.org/press-releases/genyouth-national-survey-finds-american-teens-care-about-food-and-the-environment.
Gottleib, R., & Joshi, A. (2010). Food justice. MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/7826.001.0001
Grain, K. M., & Lund, D. E. (2016). The social justice turn: Cultivating ‘critical hope’ in an age of despair. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 23(1), 45–59. https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsloa.3239521.0023.104. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsloa.3239521.0023.104
Green, J. J., Green, E. M., & Kleiner, A. M. (2011). From the past to the present: Agricultural development and black farmers in the American south. In A. H. Alkon & J. Agyeman, (Eds.), Food justice: Race, class, and sustainability. (1st ed., p. 47–64). MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/8922.003.0006
Guthman, J. (2011). Weighing in: Obesity, food justice, and the limits of capitalism. University of California Press.
Hale, J. N. (2016). The freedom schools: Student activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement. Columbia University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7312/columbia/9780231175685.001.0001
Hartmann, K., & Martin, M. (2021). A critical pedagogy of agriculture. Journal of Agricultural Education, 62(3), 51–71. https://doi.org/10.5032/jae/2021.03051. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.2021.03051
Hassberg, A. H. (2020). Nurturing the revolution: The Black Panther Party and the early seeds of the food justice movement. In Garth, H., & Reese, A. M. (Eds.), Black food matters: Racial justice in the wake of food justice. (1st ed., p.82–106). University of Minnesota Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv182jtk0.6
Hernandez, J. (2022). Fresh banana leaves: Healing Indigenous landscapes through Indigenous science. North Atlantic Books.
Hinson, W. R., & Robinson, E. (2008). “We didn’t get nothing”: The plight of Black farmers. Journal of African American Studies, 12, 283–302. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-008-9046-5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-008-9046-5
Holland, B. (2021). Capabilities, well-being, and environmental justice. In B. Coolsaet, Ed., Environmental justice: Key issues. (1st ed., p. 64–77). Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429029585-7
Holt-Giménez, E. (2011). Food security, food justice, or food sovereignty?: Crises, food movements, and regime change. In A. H. Alkon & J. Agyeman, (Eds.), Food justice: Race, class, and sustainability. (1st ed., p. 309–330). MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/8922.003.0020
Hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/para.1994.17.3.270
Jaschik, S. (2023, February 20). ‘Systemic’ disappeared from AP African American studies. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2023/02/21/%E2%80%98systemic%E2%80%99-disappeared-ap-african-american-studies.
Jones, W. A., LaVergne, D. D., White, C. D., & Larke, A. (2021). The voices of African American agriculture teachers in one southern state regarding the NFA/FFA merger. Journal of Agricultural Education, 62(2), 39–52. https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.2021.02039. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.2021.02039
Kanosvamhira, T. P. (2025). Growing together: Unveiling the potential of school-based community gardens to foster well-being, empowerment, and sustainability. Urban Transformations, 7(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/1186/s42854-024-00069-z. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s42854-024-00069-z
Kelley, R. D. G. (2016). Freedom dreams: The Black radical imagination. Beacon Press.
King, T. L. (2019). The Black shoals: Offshore formations of Black and Native studies. Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478005681
Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). From the achievement gap to the education debt: Understanding achievement in U.S. schools. Educational Researcher, 35(7), 3–12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X035007003
Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. F. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146819509700104. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/016146819509700104
Langhout, R. D., Rappaport, J., & Simmons, D. (2002). Integrating community into the classroom: Community gardening, community involvement, and project-based learning. Urban Education, 37(3), 323–349. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00485902037003002
Lekies, K. S., & Eames-Sheavly, M. (2008). Evaluating an initiative to increase youth participation in school and community gardening activities. Journal of Youth Development: Bridging Research and Practice, 3(2), 119–125. https://doi.org/10.5195/jyd.2008.313. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5195/jyd.2008.313
Levinson, M. (2014). Action civics in the classroom. Social Education, 78(2), 68–72.
Li, C. (2023). On feeding others as an act of resistance. In W. Awry, (Ed.), Nourishing resistance: Stories of food, protest, and mutual aid. (1st ed., p. 4–13). PM Press.
Love, B. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press.
Mares, T. M., & Peña, D. G. (2011). Environmental and food justice: Toward local, slow, and deep food systems. In A. H. Alkon & J. Agyeman, (Eds.), Food justice: Race, class, and sustainability. (1st ed., p. 197–220). MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/8922.003.0014
Mayam. (2023). On farming as a practice of abundance and liberation. In W. Awry, (Ed.), Nourishing resistance: Stories of food, protest, and mutual aid. (1st ed., p. 49–55). PM Press.
Maynard, B. R., Farina, A., Dell, N. A., & Kelly, M. S. (2019). Effects of trauma-informed approaches in schools: A systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 15(1–2), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1002/cl2.1018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/cl2.1018
McDowell, R., & Mason, M. (2024, January 29). Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e.
McKittrick, K. (2006). Demonic grounds: Black women and the cartographies of struggle. University of Minnesota Press.
Moulton, A. A., & Salo, I. (2022). Black geographies and Black ecologies as insurgent ecocriticism. Environment and Society, 13, 156–174. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2022.130110
Mustaffa, J. B. (2017). Mapping violence, naming life: a history of anti-Black oppression in the higher education system. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 30(8), 711–727. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2017.1350299
Newton, H. (1973). Revolutionary suicide. Penguin Books.
Norgaard, K. M., Reed, R., & Van Horn, C. (2011). A continuing legacy: Institutional racism, hunger, and nutritional justice on the Klamath. In A. H. Alkon & J. Agyeman, (Eds.), Food justice: Race, class, and sustainability. (1st ed., p. 23–46). MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/8922.003.0005
Okvat, H. A., & Zautra, A. J. (2011). Community gardening: A parsimonious path to individual, community, and environmental resilience. American Journal of Community Psychology, 47, 374–387. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9404-z. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9404-z
Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12441244. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12441244
Penniman, L. (2018). Farming while Black: Soul Fire Farm’s practical guide to liberation on the land. Chelsea Green Publishing.
Pfeil, C. (2025a). Exploring food justice and civic attitudes among Black high school students. Journal of Agricultural Education, 66(1), Article 16. https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.v66i1.2903. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.v66i1.2903
Pfeil, C. (2025b). Food justice and the Ironwood Community Cookbook: Examining pressures of food (in)security through local recipes and food stories. Food, Culture & Society, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2025.2600710. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2025.2600710
Pfeil, C. (2024). “It’s good for the human soul”: Community gardening as a pathway to civic action. Journal of Agricultural Education, 65(4), 127–144. https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.v65i4.2774. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.v65i4.2774
Pulido, L., & De Lara, J. (2018). Reimagining ‘justice’ in environmental justice: Radical ecologies, decolonial thought, and the Black Radical Tradition. Environment & Planning E: Nature & Space, 1(1/2), 76–98. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848618770363
Rodney, W. (2022). Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African revolution. Verso.
Rubenstein, E. D., & Thoron, A. C. (2015). Supervised agricultural experience programs: An examination of committed teachers and student-centered programs. Journal of Agricultural Education, 56(4), 75–89. https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.2015.04075. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.2015.04075
Ruiz, N. (2023). Seeds planted by Nana Tota. In W. Awry, (Ed.), Nourishing resistance: Stories of food, protest, and mutual aid. (1st ed., p. 161–164). PM Press.
Sbicca, J. (2018). Food justice now!: Deepening the roots of social struggle. University of Minnesota Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv3dnnrt
Scheurich, J. J., & Young, M.D. (1997). Coloring epistemologies: Are our research epistemologies racially biased? Educational Researcher, 26(4), 4–16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X026004004
Schott Foundation for Public Education, (2021, July 14). How parent organizing has shifted classrooms toward racial justice. https://schottfoundation.org/the-latest/how-parent-organizing-has-shifted-classrooms-toward-racial-justice.
Sharpe, C. (2016). In the wake: On blackness and being. Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822373452
Silkenat, D. (2022). Scars on the land: An environmental history of slavery in the American South. Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197564226.001.0001
Smyth, J. C. (2025, February 28). Literacy advocates in Ohio defend difficult texts as they mark Toni Morrison day. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/toni-morrison-day-books-ohio-956009b5b5cec15d47942dad6bd19a21.
Strickland, C. (1994). New Farmers of America in retrospect: The formative years 1935–1965. Joyco Printing.
Tognola, V. (2023). Cooking revolutions in the popular pot. In W. Awry, (Ed.), Nourishing resistance: Stories of food, protest, and mutual aid. (1st ed., p. 14–21). PM Press.
Tracy, S. J. (2010). Qualitative quality: Eight “big-tent” criteria for excellent qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800410383121. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800410383121
Warren, C. A., and Coles, J. A. (2020). Trading spaces: Antiblackness and reflections on Black education futures. Equity & Excellence in Education, 53(3), 382–398. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2020.1764882
White, M. M. (2018). Freedom farmers: Agricultural resistance and the Black freedom movement. University of North Carolina Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469643694.001.0001
Wilderson, F. B. (2020). Afropessimism. Liveright.
Wilson Gilmore, R. (2022). Abolition geography. Verso.
Woods, C. (1998). Development arrested: The blues and plantation power in the Mississippi Delta. Verso.
Woodson A., & Love, B. (2019). Outstanding: Centering black kids’ enoughness in civic education research. Multicultural Perspectives, 21(2), 91–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/15210960.2019.1606631. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15210960.2019.1606631
Wright, J., & Kim, T. (2023). Falling into the gap: The coloniality of achievement gap discourses and their responses. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 44(5), 796–811. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2023.2185768. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2023.2185768
Wynter, S. (2004). Unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: Towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation-an argument. The New Centennial Review, 3(3), 257–337. https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2004.0015. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2004.0015
Yoder, P. J. (2024). Inside the black box of divisive concepts and difficult history: Introducing a typology of collective trauma in social studies education. AERA Open, 10, n.p. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584241287472. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584241287472
Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
