“The Garden Is Life and the Garden Is Death”: Radical Growers and the Struggle for Liberation

Abstract

The weight of state-sanctioned racial violence sits heavily upon communities that have been harmed by decades of disinvestment. The inequities of which are only exacerbated in today's climate of brazen white supremacy, environmental racism, and COVID-19-related health disparities and food apartheid. Although protests have been a visual representation of a collective cry for racial justice, resistance has also been rising in urban growing spaces. However, there is little understanding of how radical growing spaces contribute to intersecting issues of justice and how this work can be supported and celebrated in the struggle for black liberation. Through a study of growing spaces in Camden, NJ, and Philadelphia, PA, I utilize Critical Environmental Justice (CEJ) to identify two important findings: (1) growers create space that confronts and rectifies the violence of antiblack racism and (2) redevelopment and white space act as a form of violence that undercuts the work of black liberation. By connecting Urban Agriculture and CEJ, this study elevates and celebrates the wisdom of radical growers, making the connection between movements for land, food, environmental, and racial justice to actively work for liberation.

Introduction

Prominent food justice advocate and farmer Sheryll Durrant recently described the work of urban agriculture (UA) as “an act of war and self-defense.”¹ The stories of urban growers² frequently “reveal that environmental revitalization projects are a direct response to years of abandonment, to what they perceive as urban war, and to environmental violence and trauma.”³ This ongoing “slow violence”⁴ is embedded in cities such as Camden and Philadelphia that have been harmed by decades of deliberate economic malnutrition.⁵ The inequities of which are exacerbated in today's climate of brazen white supremacy, police brutality, environmental racism, and COVID-19-related health disparities and food apartheid. Although the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been a powerful and public cry against antiblack racism and violence, urban growers of color have also been organizing in ways that celebrate and model cooperation, self-reliance,⁶ and liberation from racist violence, in its many forms.

Community cooperation, often rooted in agriculture, has long been a means of subsistence and power for black communities who have been forced to find alternative ways to survive in exclusionary systems.⁷^,⁸ Historical greats such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Fannie Lou Hamer, Shirley Sherrod, and the Black Panther Party paved the way for the resistance farming of today.⁹ Therefore, growing space is rarely just about food¹⁰^,¹¹ but about resistance and celebration and intersects with food and environmental justice to gain access to land and critical resources that have been unevenly distributed along racial and class lines.¹²^,¹³^,¹⁴ Whitfield defines this work as liberation; the ability to do more than just survive, but also to make meaning of life; to build freedom and to defend it.¹⁵ These “radical”¹⁶ growing spaces often work in tandem with and encompass similar goals to the BLM movement: resistance, resilience, and the recognition of black contributions, the eradication of white supremacy and the building of local power.¹⁷ These spaces are not only a response to violence, but a celebration of place-making and solidarity, the importance of which is often obscured by analysis of racial violence that is “stalled by a preoccupation with the suffering Black body”¹⁸ and the tendency of research to focus on “what is wrong in Black communities” rather than centering black humanity and self-reliance.¹⁹

In addition, current analysis of UA relies heavily upon the measurement of food and health with little analysis of how institutional racism “exacerbate[s] and reinforce[s] landscapes of access.”²⁰ Many scholars and activists are calling for an expanded understanding of UA; of how it is situated in history and in systems of power and inequality²¹^,²²^,²³^,²⁴ as well as how it can advance social justice at a structural level.²⁵

In response, this study utilizes Critical Environmental Justice (CEJ) to call attention to the intersection of physical, psychological, and environmental violence in urban gardens “in order to excavate the roots of racist violence no matter what form it takes.”²⁶ In doing so, this study offers a “transformative response”²⁷ to the violence of environmental injustice against bodies of land and bodies of marginalized people and highlights the indispensability of black lives,²⁸ the importance of black place²⁹^,³⁰ and the ways that urban growers resist racism in the struggle for black liberation. This is an important call especially as black growing spaces face increasing threats of state-sanctioned violence and as UA grows in popularity, risking the “whitewashing”³¹ of grassroots efforts. UA as a practice and study has the potential to replicate systemic inequality if it is not deliberate to dismantle it. On the contrary, because it is positioned at the intersection of food and environmental justice, it has the potential to achieve “environmental justice and distributional equity.”³²

Based on a study of UA in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) and Camden (New Jersey), this work explores the role of growing space in bracing for and responding to multiscalar forms of violence and shows how (1) growers create space that confronts and rectifies the violence of antiblack racism and (2) how redevelopment, gentrification, and white space acts as a form of state-sanctioned violence that undercuts the work of black liberation.

Methods

This qualitative study approved by the [redacted] IRB is built from critical and community-centered approaches and seeks to acknowledge the limits and responsibilities of my position as a white researcher, respectfully sharing in sacred spaces while being responsible for dismantling oppression. Decolonizing this research means this work has been led by historical analysis and local knowledge with the goal of honoring community truth and abstaining from the extractive potential of research.³³ This research takes place in contexts that “bear the scar tissue of colonialism, dispossession and occupation” and, therefore, I used a process of reflexivity³⁴and stakeholder checks³⁵ to ensure community voices are accurately represented. This study was born out of my work in gardens where I built reciprocal relationships³⁶ and trust, working in the soil alongside growers. I received direct input from growers around research questions, methods, and opportunities for participation. These relationships allowed me to gather rich data through interviews and observation that also held meaning for the community.³⁷

During 15 months of fieldwork spanning from August 2019 to November 2020, I attended 47 garden-related events, including meetings, volunteer events, advocacy efforts, and celebrations in Philadelphia and Camden. In conducting research while personally engaged in related activism, I worked to achieve what Fine calls “provocative generalizability” or “the capacity for research linked to activism to reflect deeply within a site and also echo boldly across sites, linking movements of resistance and human rights.”³⁸ I conducted 24 semistructured interviews and gathered evidence of lived experiences in 21 different gardens that contribute to “political imagination around resistance, social justice, and the politics of redistribution.”³⁹ All but one of the interviews and observations contained in this study reflect the perspectives of nonwhite individuals, all of whom identified themselves with the work of black liberation. To avoid the erasure of their experiences,⁴⁰ interview participants chose the level of anonymity, and all consented to the use of their full names.⁴¹

I analyzed data through a process of coding beginning with a codebook containing concepts pulled from key literature and preliminary conversations in community. As fieldwork progressed and through the use of analytic memos⁴² significant themes emerged and aided in the interpretation of my data.⁴³^,⁴⁴

Findings

In this section, I share how growers in Philadelphia and Camden respond to the violence of environmental racism, including disinvestment, displacement, and food apartheid, and how the struggle to protect growing spaces has grown in light of encroaching development and white space.

Growing for the Greater Good

Body and land: growing space and environmental justice

We are meeting in his garden to talk about his passion for growing food but Christoff Lindsey starts by pointing out the polluting industries just blocks away from his home in Camden, New Jersey, “you have a concrete plant and metal recycling…you have CCMUA, the cogeneration, the trash to steam, and Holtec. That's six right there. In such a concentrated neighborhood. So, what would you call it? It's violence. And it's preordained, it's orchestrated. And that's just the stuff we know about.” As Stein⁴⁵ offers “when we view our bodies as ‘homes,’ ‘lands,’ or ‘environments’ that have been placed at risk, stolen from us, and even killed due to social or physical harms” we begin to understand environmental justice in a way that connects bodies and land with violence in critical ways. Christoff explains these intersecting forms of antiblack racism as “a constant barrage to discourage and isolate you from your humanity. It's a weight at the end of the day and you don't know where it comes from.” His garden then acts as, “an oasis, an unexpected relief. It's a respite from aesthetic violence- from bad smells, unclean city lots, addicts, the debris of other people's madness and the erosion of peace.”

Similarly, in addition to providing physical benefits such as food and relief from the unrelenting summer heat common in urban heat islands, the Las Parcelas garden offers a vibrant space dedicated to culture and its diverse neighborhood. The birth of the garden was, as founder Iris Brown explained, “a necessity”⁴⁶ due to the racist policies of redlining and disinvestment that left the entire block in disrepair, attracting illegal dumping and drug activity. Reclaiming the space, parcel by parcel allowed growers to purchase and gain control of the neighborhood, remediate the land, pool resources, celebrate culture, build a vibrant youth program and protect against encroaching gentrification.

Other growing spaces similarly connected with intersecting fights for environmental justice. Lan Dinh, a grower from Resilient Roots, “a farm and food sovereignty program providing refugees, immigrants and communities of color a source of self-determination”⁴⁷ shares that when they found lead in their garden, they worked with students to launch a campaign to abate the area, “We turned the call for the school garden into a call for the right to healthy schools for all students in Philly, looking at the root of the problem and where investment and money were going.” Exemplifying the multiscalar approach of CEJ, it was not only the lead, but also the fact that Philadelphia's tax abatement policy diverted funds from public schools leading to environmental injustice and adding to gentrification. Making the connection between lead in the garden and the systemic violence of the tax abatement policy inspired a coalition of teachers' unions, renters, students and gardeners, which allowed them to win the campaign, fix the garden, and bring much needed resources to the school.

All of the growers in this study described growing food in community as a response to antiblack racism whether it be in the form of disinvestment with its vacant lots and under-resourced city departments, the unjust placement of polluting facilities, joblessness, or hunger. In every radical space, the connection between food, environment, and justice was a deliberate strategy for creating social change. This exemplifies the ways that growing space works to rectify environmental injustice and how these spaces bring people together around intersecting issues and scales to create physical changes in the face of environmental violence in its many forms.

Solidarity against displacement

On September 5, 2020, what was supposed to be a day spent lobbying against a City Council plan to displace residents and the César Andreu Iglesias Community Garden in Philadelphia, turned into a celebration. But even with word that their advocacy had worked and the land would be preserved, the day was used to further the fight against state-sanctioned displacement. Josh Reaves, a garden organizer encouraged the crowd:

We always have to be ready to fight for our liberation. This is a land crisis. Black and Brown folx have loved and cared for the land and built true beauty out of oppression. They demolish our homes and tell us it's good for us. We have no grants, no money, no councilperson on our side, it's just the collective. We will keep fighting until we are all free.⁴⁸

Ellis Ferrell, founder of the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club, a black-owned riding stable in the city also asked the collective to sign a petition and help protect their space:

We've used it for 100 years and now the City is doing the same thing to us. They are gonna come in and use eminent domain. We own our land, but they won't give us anything for it. This is happening all over the City. It's not a separate fight. It's our fight!

The collective fight against the violence of displacement was evident in all radical growing spaces and highlights the importance of indispensability, as Pellow explains of this pillar of CEJ, “indispensability honors key EJ and ecological principles by seeing all communities as interconnected, interdependent, but also sovereign and requiring the solidarity of others.”⁴⁹

After winning their fight for land security in Camden, and securing a 99-year lease, Resilient Roots was able to direct their organizing efforts outward; organizing with neighbors, monitoring the city auction site and engaging in broader community efforts. Lan explains:

As great as a win as it was, how do we also see ourselves in what is happening to all other green spaces in Camden? We want to make sure that as development is happening, displacement isn't also happening at the same time for the residents in other communities.

Urban growers in this study believed community control of the land to be the catalyst for liberation, or the ability to create, sustain, and defend life. Indispensability, the final pillar of CEJ, is especially powerful for understanding the connection of black lives, land, and mutual liberation as seen in the struggle to protect growing space in Philadelphia and Camden.

Food as freedom

On a summer night in June 2019, growers and allies gathered to hear Dr. Monica White discuss her book, Freedom Farmers. She described growing as “using food to create the world we want to see, to build what works for us. Food is freedom.”⁵⁰ A woman in the crowd asked, “How do we get free? You depend on your oppressor; food is freedom but working at Dunkin Donuts…how does that work? Making 7.25. This can't go on.” Dr. White responded, “The way we get free is together. Create an umbrella that we can all fit under, create spaces where we can love up on each other.”

For growers in this study, food was the invitation to mutual liberation. Across all growing spaces, I observed the ways in which people organized and connected around food in the shape of cooperatives, affordable housing, shared child care, therapy, cultural connection, job, and youth training as well as access to fresh, culturally important, healthy food. This is important because as CEJ suggests, relying on the state to bring about justice can reinforce structural inequality rather than deepen democracy.⁵¹ Noelle Warford, director of the Urban Tree Connection, emphasizes, “food and the land are the tools for the development of people to imagine and directly participate in or own a production process that is not extractive but is actually regenerative and meeting a direct community need.”

Chris Bolden-Newsome, codirector of the Sankofa Community Farm, explains, “there is no magic in the field…you get close to God when you realize you have no control over anything. The magic is not from the farm—it's not liberation. It's the constellation that is the key. It's the spiritual engagement, our economics, our organizing and connecting.”⁵²

Although this does not absolve the state of its role, it offers important insight into the way in which growers navigate the systems that often perpetuate violence and inequality to strengthen local power.

Growing in the Dark: Threats to Liberation

The first thing that went was the garden, then the garages and the views…then the sun.⁵³

Although growers played a critical role in mobilizing, preserving culture, pooling resources, restoring the environment, rejoicing, feeding, educating, and protecting against gentrification, it was not met without challenge, which impacted the lives and work of radical growers. Growers identified redevelopment, gentrification, and white space as the most harmful of these challenges, the first being most visible and the second more insidious.

Development as violence

When they say development, they mean ‘we want you to leave so we can move other people in.⁵⁴

For many, the loss of growing space triggered deep wounds and distrust. In Camden, the city bulldozed a garden that provided residents of an affordable housing complex with fresh food. Hipolito Malavé explains the loss, “they took mine; they took the whole space to make that Family Dollar over there. Every time I look at the space where the store is, it would make me angry. You know? Because they took my garden.” Another grower was in tears discussing the loss of her space. It had been a place of healing as she faced cancer. She had an agreement with the city to purchase the plot but was outbid as a form of what she believed to be political retaliation for her work against redevelopment. Others such as Garrison shared that even though people were excited about his farm they were uneasy because:

from our experience, the City of Philadelphia takes stuff from all of the time. Our houses, our cars, our people off the streets. Anything. They take stuff. They are afraid that's gonna happen to me. You know that I'm not really going to be able to do the things I'm telling them that I'm trying to do because they feel the City will come and interfere.

This concern impacted his strategy for gaining control of the land, making him wary of accepting help from the city or related organizations such as the Land Bank, The Neighborhood Gardens Trust, and the Philadelphia Horticultural Society because “I have trust issues and I'm very skeptical about who I work with and who I let help me because some people can take your vision, say they're helping you and manipulate and trick you right out of your spot because you let somebody else take control of it.” This concern was reflected across all growing spaces where people feared eminent domain, felt blindsided by city decision making and felt unwanted and discarded. As one grower expressed, “they don't think our labor is valuable.”

At a Soil Generation gathering, a woman explained “like seeds, we do our growing in the dark. Sometimes you have to work outside the system because they don't give a smack about us.” Although many agreed, there was also frustration that gardens were still being lost at an alarming rate.

The loss of growing space furthered distrust for growers who experienced the everyday weight of state violence. Even as growers organized outside of the state, as Garrison made clear, the garden was yet another site where resistance was possible but overshadowed by the threat of antiblack racism.

White space

It is a challenge to even say Black in green space work.⁵⁵

In every interview, growers discussed white space not only because of gentrification but also the rise in popularity of UA. This was evidenced by who received funding for growing. In Philadelphia, a Soil Generation member expressed frustration over city funding going to white-led institutions rather than the black and brown growers, “They are taking food from us and then getting paid to put food back in my hands. Thirty million dollars to distribute food but not to teach people how to grow their own. These people get money to work in Black and Brown communities.”⁵⁶ Several growers pointed out these same white-led institutions frequently took their ideas and resources and packaged them as their own. Nicole Sugerman, Policy Associate for the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group warned, “white led organizations are co-opting racial equity because racial equity plans are the ‘it thing’ right now.”

For radical growers, it was important to make the distinction between their growing space and white space. Another member expressed, “Urban Ag has a white, hipster feel but we organize because our lives depend on it.”⁵⁷ And another shared, “Gardening isn't a hobby—it's a way of life. We need the city to know this and allocate resources to Black and Brown farmers.”⁵⁸

Others expressed the unwelcoming nature of white space, Josh explains, “a lot of gardens in Philly enforce white space with 12 year wait lists and fences.” One such space was liberated by activists “from the white people who reclaimed it but who left a lock on the gate and set strict hours for its use.”⁵⁹ This unwelcome also appeared in leadership dynamics and programming. As one growing space transitioned away from white leadership, they had to redesign their mission. The new director shared, “there are some white savior, white supremacy practices deeply embedded in this organization. There were a lot of blind spots.” Under white leadership, the organization focused on selling food at Farmers Markets rather than providing food to the community. In addition, the optics of all white volunteer teams and staff was off putting to the community. Similarly, Lan describes that without a racial analysis that calls attention to the fact that the food system “was built on taking land and enslavement” UA “invisibilizes the truth and other stories” and “impacts how people relate to each other, how people are able to show up in the space when their histories aren't valued.” She stresses the importance of naming land-based trauma:

when People of Color are interested in agriculture but they have trauma coming up they're able to be supported. If people say “oh we're all the same,” then everybody should feel similarly on the land. But the reality is sometimes it's harder for folks to have that connection because of institutional separation and a part of the healing is being able to name those things so that people can reclaim and have choice if they want to be on the land.

Discussion and Conclusion

How then can black liberation be supported? In this article, I provide insight into the role of radical growing space in confronting state-sanctioned violence. The use of CEJ calls attention to the various scales of injustice that harm people and places simultaneously and amplifies the work of growers in Camden and Philadelphia who use food and land to take action in diverse ways in response to pollution, violence, disinvestment, displacement, food apartheid, and racial injustice. In building community resilience, fighting for local power and control over development, these spaces embodied the pillars of CEJ, providing examples of the intersectionality of inequality, the violence inherent in state-sanctioned displacement and of racial indispensability and the way that growing spaces connected to fight for mutual liberation. This work shows how struggles for land and justice in UA are entwined with race, property, power, and control, and cannot be understood apart from critical analysis. These findings, although limited by geographical and political considerations, offer important insight into the potential of UA to confront and transcend racial injustice.

Furthermore, the growers in this study offer examples, insight, and warnings that are important for UA to dismantle structural racism and shape the scholarship and practice of UA. In particular, prioritizing funding for black, brown, Indigenous, and people of color led growing spaces and organizations, which is critical for securing land, investing in infrastructure, and honoring the work. In addition, supporting representative leadership is critical for ensuring UA does not erase people, culture, and traumas related to the land. As UA grows in popularity, those who engage in its practice should be mindful of the consequences of white space and work to actively protect black space. Finally, as the majority of radical growers exemplified, connecting UA and CEJ is a natural and powerful practice that elevates and celebrates the wisdom of radical growers that has traditionally been missing in scholarship. This connection increases the potential for collaboration between movements for land, food, environmental, and racial justice and allows this study to contribute to a deeper and more critical analysis of UA to actively work for liberation.