Priscilla Amado and Preston Roundtree on starting a community garden together, and their vision to use this model to drive better health outcomes for Black people nationwide.

Who would’ve thought that in just three years we could be the change we wished to see? Any vision starts with a simple thought. Before we prayed freedom, we thought power — and thoughts are power-full. There are so many things we as a community know but don’t believe, like the power of our thoughts. Where would we be as a people if we actually believed what we know? If we really believed that our thoughts would manifest through our words, through our actions and our habits, to become our destiny? Wouldn’t we actually believe that we could be the change that we wish to see? Wouldn’t we be free? Are we?

That line of questioning allowed us to see that we are free if we choose to be; if we work to be. The Tehuti Ma’at Community Garden, our garden, is land. Land that we are transforming into an urban farm via our Organic Food for the People initiative. Land is healing. We began this community farm program as a tangible step toward racial, economic, environmental and social justice. We know this work is a holistic solution to the violence and health issues plaguing our neighborhoods, including diabetes and obesity.

Our goal is to provide access to organic produce and herbs to people who wouldn’t typically have access to affordable organic food; to be able to grow enough food to feed our entire neighborhood in Brooklyn. This vision requires tangible steps: build community through growing food, establish a Black farmers market and CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) at our urban farm and eventually have a food co-op.

Right now, we are in the third year of the Organic Food for the People program. We’ve spent the past three years cleaning and rehabilitating this dilapidated garden and working to develop a community of artists, activists and educators through dynamic programming. Our RAWorkshops and open-mics have provided educational resources and hands-on skills training on topics such as holistic healing, food justice, health, wellness and nutrition. The programming is a significant piece of this project because it shows participants the importance of this work, exposes them to critical information, allows them to be heard, develop skills and actively participate in creating Organic Food for the People.

Our garden is in the historical neighborhood of Weeksville, Brooklyn — one of the first free Black communities post-“emancipation”. Present day, we are right at the conjunction of Crown Heights, Bedstuy and Brownsville. Yet still today, the ‘hood we live in is no different than any other predominantly Black neighborhood in Amerikkka. Funny thing is, neither of us were born in Brooklyn, but trust: Weeksville is just like the inner city ‘hoods of our hometowns, Boston and Mobile, Alabama. We’re all being plagued by food apartheid, health disparities, over-policing and corroding infrastructure, to say the least.

When we look at Flint, it's really not an anomaly. Most major cities have fluoride, chlorine and other chemicals flowing through toxic pipes absorbing lead, mercury and all kinds of other heavy metals that people are drinking, cooking and washing with — that's poison. Running away isn’t going to change anything. We can move and live in places where this isn’t the case, but that isn’t doing anything about these conditions for those who remain. In so many ways, we turn our backs to our most significant issues, giving consent to our own oppression.

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The community we are building is borderless. While we want — and do have — the people who were born and raised in Weeksville to be part of this work, we’re not creating any boundaries or limitations based on location. Anyone can come and help from any neighborhood or borough. We have volunteers that come from Yonkers, the Bronx and even Long Island. Shit, we have volunteers that come all the way from DC!

You can’t spell commUNITY without unity. We need to place unity in the context of Pan Africanism — all Black people, everywhere uniting under the universal red, black and green united African flag. This is carrying the legacy of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. It’s not about where you were born, and it's not about where you live. That’s the distraction.

When it's all said and done, we need power to gain freedom — and that power is activated when we unite, organize and work together toward a common goal. Today, with the food system literally becoming weaponized, uniting for food sovereignty is crucial. In 2018, Monsanto, the same company that created Agent Orange and DDT pesticides, was acquired by Bayer, the company that commercialized chemical warfare and was the first to trademark heroin. Bayer now controls a quarter of the world’s food supply. What more do we need to know? We already know that the medical industrial complex is not for us — now the food is systematically killing us too?! Growing our own food is a way we can stop putting our lives in the hands of a system with a long history of profiting off of the mutilation, exploitation, experimentation and genocide of Black people, globally.

Growing our own food is a way we can stop putting our lives in the hands of a system with a long history of profiting off of the mutilation, exploitation, experimentation and genocide of Black people, globally.

*Priscilla Amado & Preston Roundtree at Tehuti Ma’at Community Garden in 2018*

The healthier we eat, the more control we take over our health, the more we reduce our proximity to the medical industry. Like our youth at the garden would say, “Let your food be your medicine, not your poison.” We have a rich legacy of holistic healing, and it doesn’t start with Dr. Sebi. Our contemporary Black herbalists and healers were just directing us back to our roots. Alkaline, electric, healing foods are simply the wild indigenous foods that our ancestors grew. The land, food, spirituality, connectedness — these ancient ways that were stripped from us are the life and blood of civilization. Our ancestors wouldn’t have created math, art, science, architecture, etc. if it weren’t for the development of agriculture first allowing us to settle and develop high culture. The world as it stands and civilization as a whole is based on agriculture. How don’t we have an obligation to heal the planet and our very lives that are being destroyed by industrial agriculture today?

Unfortunately, agricultural work is still viewed in the context of enslavement by many Black people today. This association is very traumatic, and again it all boils down to economics. Capitalism is profit-driven, and exploitative of natural resources — including labor. Our ancestors, while enslaved, produced the wealth of this nation. Now, pop culture teaches us that organic, healthy eating and gardening are a “white thing,” which must be why wealth is a “white thing” too. It's high time we take back our POWER and honor our legacy as the first farmers and gardeners of the planet. It's not just about making money. What makes the money important is the ability to provide resources for our people, so it's really about the food, clothing, shelter and security we actually need.

It’s important for us not to get caught up in the dominant society’s narrative of what this return to the land is and looks like. For people of original wisdom, it shouldn’t be about sustainability. Why would we want to sustain this shit? We’re actually working to create something different based on something that already existed. If anything, it's a resurgence; a restoration. This planet is hurting and the systems currently operating at large are destructive. What we need is the restoration of Ma’at — truth, justice, universal balance, cosmic harmony and reciprocity. That’s why we chose the name Tehuti Ma’at. Tehuti is the ancient principle of intelligence, communication and creative expression. The community work we do is a direct strategic response to the injustices we’ve shared, so our mission is to express truth and create true liberation.

Initially, when we began our work, we wanted to structure ourselves as a non-profit organization because that seemed like the righteous thing to do. However, we decided to take three major factors into consideration:

Mind: Being reliant on fundraising, grants and heavier government regulation isn’t even sustainable, never mind prosperous. How can we depend on the system as it stands to fund the revolution?

Body: In our personal experience, nonprofits are not a holistic solution. One of the roots of our problem is economic, so being dependent on charity doesn’t make sense. Not to mention, the people who have significant resources are not actually interested in fundamental change…otherwise we wouldn’t be having this discussion, right?

Spirit: Ma’at, our ancestral principle of righteousness, emphasizes reciprocity, giving and receiving in equal measure. Non-profit is a contradiction within capitalism. How can one thrive in an economic system that’s profit-driven and not make a profit? There has to be a way that’s more spiritually intelligent. After all, everything starts in spirit and then takes form.

When we learned that cooperative businesses break cycles of poverty, we began exploring that option. Information about cooperative business development isn’t as freely available as non-profit structures, but they’re similar in some ways. Things like developing a board for governance, establishing officers and a business structure are necessary. There are general cooperative principles, but ultimately you and your collective decide what your cooperative guidelines are going to be. In many ways, we see co-ops as the path within capitalism to a new economy. Any business can be a worker-owned cooperative business, even a non-profit model.

Our issue with the non-profit model is that it puts the economics behind the mission, and we feel that economics needs to drive the mission. You’re going to need the money regardless, but how are you getting it? We want to work together, empower ourselves and others by producing valuable assets and foundational needs so that we can heal ourselves, first and foremost. Tehuti Ma’at as an organization is striving to establish a cooperative business for each of our programs in order to fund our freedom. It's going to take capital to get us there, but we want to be fueled by the people. If those who invest in you have a stake in your business, they are more likely to bring more than monetary support. People are the real POWER.

Those who feel called to the land must access it. Buying land is a worthy investment. For those in cities interested in starting a community garden, here are some steps to get you there efficiently:

01 Get the land. Purchase or lease land. Locate vacant lots you’re interested in and find out who owns them by researching official online directories in your city (NYC Resource: 596acres.org). Find city-owned property that belongs to the Parks Department and find out how to become a steward. You’ll be surprised (NYC Resource: greenthumb.nycgovparks.org).

02 Don’t be afraid of a hard project. No matter how bad it looks, remember there’s land under there. Put in the work to clean it out and you will eventually have a green slate.

03 Find your tribe. This work cannot be done alone. You need your inner core. We recommend three people just as dedicated as you are. Know what role each of you will take and hold each other accountable to.

04 Organize yourself. What’s the vision? What’s your mission and purpose?

05 Establish your association. No need for legality at this point. What type of organization do you want to be? Research the laws and resources in your region.

06 Create community agreements or bylaws for how your group wants to govern the land. Emphasize the nature of community by making group decisions, having regular group meetings and practicing cooperative growing methods. How will you give others access to the land?

07 Identify volunteers and delegate tasks according to their strengths. People may come and go, but you need to stay true to the vision. Utilize the energy and skills of your volunteers practically and strategically.

08 Ritualize the work. The land is alive — honor its spirit and that of those whose shoulders we stand on. Align your mission to a unifying ancestral principle. Don’t sleep on this step.

09 Connect with us and join the Organic Food for the People movement. We want to be a network of urban growers so that we can facilitate a large scale agricultural cooperative akin to Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farm Cooperative.

We can feed ourselves, we just have to do it.