Land in Black Hands

Developing Black Land Access, Ownership, Stewardship and Sovereignty.

Land in Black Hands (LIBH) is a program of the Kingston Land Trust dedicated to the collective exploration of ecological land stewardship by the BIPOC community through education, long term land access, public engagement and forthcoming projects at the initiative's land base in the City of Kingston. 
 

Members of the local BIPOC community are encouraged to join one of our LIBH working groups or committees as we envision the future of this initiative. 

Be a part of this work in any of the following ways…

 

STEERING COMMITTEE

 

A strategic governing body that provides organizational guidance and advises on project alignment with program goals and values. 

LAND BASE WORKING GROUPS

 

On-the-ground advising and working groups that develop long and short term projects at the LIBH land base. Specific land base committees are to be determined.

LIBH NETWORK

 

BIPOC farmers and growers sharing and promoting resources, challenges, and successes for the autonomy of BIPOC-led land projects.

ADD YOUR VOICE AND JOIN HERE

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2024

We acquired 54 acres of biodiverse and farmable land bridging the City of Kingston and Ulster county to serve as the LIBH land base. We enter into a visioning phase with the local BIPOC community to imagine how this land and the program goals might engage one another.

2021

We had a more than 100 attendees at our zoom event for our 3rd Annual Land in Black Hands community conversation as part of Black History Month Kingston 2021. The discussion was co-sponsored by The Hudson Valley Farm Hub, Woodstock Land Conservancy, Live Well Kingston and the Old Dutch Church, and built off the outcomes of previous community discussions by highlighting local and regional community members who are building autonomy and land sovereignty. Projects discussed included backyard gardening, plant-based entrepreneurship, self-healing through a connection with nature, and a regional movement toward secure land tenure for Black farmers and land stewards.

2020

On February 21, 2020 we held a 25-minute screening of the 2019 Land in Black Hands panel highlights (watch on YouTube) at the Clinton St. United Methodist Church, followed by a discussion community members about ownership/sovereignty, black-led food/agricultural cooperatives, challenges, victories and resources.

2019

During Black History Month In 2019 we launched our first annual Land in Black Hands event (in collaboration with the Hudson Valley Farm Hub and Scenic Hudson). Panelists included Ed Whitfield (Fund for Democratic Communities), Karen Washington (Rise and Root Farm), Çaca Yvaire (Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust), and Jalal Sabur (Freedom Food Alliance and WILDSEED)

Karen Washington

Rise and Root Farm

Karen is a farmer, community activist and co-owner of Rise and Root Farm, a cooperatively run farm in the black dirt region of Orange County, NY. Rise and Root is committed to protecting the land and ecosystem and advances food justice by connecting communities in and outside of New York City with the food that’s grown on the farm. Karen, who has been a resident of the Bronx for over 26 years, spent decades promoting urban farming as a way for New Yorkers to access to fresh, locally grown food. She also co-founded Black Urban Growers (BUGS), an organization of volunteers committed to building networks and community support for black growers in urban and rural settings. Among her many accomplishments, Ebony magazine voted her one of their 100 most influential African Americans in the country in 2012, and in 2014 she was awarded the James Beard Leadership Award.

 

Ed Whitfield

Fund for Democratic Communities

Ed is a social critic, writer and community activist who has lived in Greensboro since 1970. He is co-Managing Director of the Fund for Democratic Communities. Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, Ed’s political activism started with attending Little Rock Central High School and beginning to do anti-war work as a teenager. Ed retired after 30 years in industry before becoming involved with philanthropy. He now speaks and writes on issues of cooperatives and economic development while continuing to be interested in issues of war and peace, as well as education and social responses to racism. Ed serves on the boards of the New Economy Coalition, The Working World, and the Southern Reparations Loan Fund. While he spends much of his time practicing bass guitar, Ed can often be found playing jazz or blues flute along with singer-songwriters and bands in Greensboro and wherever he goes in the world. He recently won the “Plays the Most Instruments” award at Greensboro’s long-running Open Mic night.

 

Çaca Yvaire

Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust

As an expeditionary sculptor, cooperative developer, and political ecologist devoted to bloodshore praxis and critical planetary action, Çaca is enamored with one question: What does it take to sustain a celebration of the commons? And so Çaca minds the process of ceremony, aiming to cultivate skills and sharpen awareness in times of climate conflict and ecogrief. He is an ardent advocate for children’s rights and non-human personhood, which manifests in forging undocumented refugia and carving verse. He has worked in Tasmania, Moloka’i, New Zealand, Indonesia, Australia, and across the United States organizing and studying climate change and conflict poetics, climate migration rhetorics, and interspecies cooperative organizational theory and leadership.

 

Jalal Sabur

Freedom Food Alliance | WILDSEED

Jalal is a farmer, organizer, prison abolitionist and the co-founder of the Freedom Food Alliance and WILDSEED Community Farm & Healing Village in Millerton, NY. WILDSEED is a Black and Brown-led, feminine-centered, queer-loving, earth-based intentional community and organic farm, created as an act reparations. At WILDSEED, Jalal’s focus is engaging in farm education, the Sweet Freedom maple syrup operation, and continuing the Freedom Food Alliance work of building a Farms Not Prisons movement. The Freedom Food Alliance is a collective of small rural and urban farmers, organizers, incarcerated people and their families that use food as an organizing tool to address food sovereignty, prison abolition, and economic justice. The Alliance started Victory Bus Project which supports families of incarcerated people with transportation to prisons in the Hudson Valley with a box of farm fresh food.

Resources

  • Black Farmer Fund

    The mission of Black Farmer Fund is to create a thriving, resilient, and equitable food system by investing in black food systems entrepreneurs and communities in New York. The Black Farmer Fund will also serve as a bridge for black communities to participate in creating a food system that benefits those within and outside of black communities.

    Reparations Map by Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust

    The food system was built on the stolen land and stolen labor of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and people of color. Members of the Northeast Farmers of Color Network are claiming our sovereignty and calling for reparations of land and resources so that we can grow nourishing food and distribute it in our communities. The specific projects and resource needs of farmers of color are listed here. 

    Conservationists of Color

    An affinity group for people of color who believe in protecting the air we breathe, the water we drink and the land we love while creating healthy, thriving communities. 

  • Grow Well Kingston is a collective of organizations and individuals that support Kingston residents to grow plants and raise animals for food, medicine, natural habitat, and beauty, by supporting projects that provide knowledge, growing spaces, and resources.

  • Seeking land? Find land to use in your neighborhood or list land you would like to share with your community!

Latest News

 

 

The Kingston Land Trust (KLT) completed its latest acquisition consisting of 54 acres of land during the final week of Black History Month following a 2-month community fundraising campaign that raised upwards of $60,000. The purchase establishes a land base for its expanding Land In Black...

Tags: Land In Black Hands

The Kingston Land Trust Fundraises to Acquire 54 Acres for Land in Black Hands Program

 

KINGSTON, January 2024 — The Kingston Land Trust (KLT) announces a critical milestone in its mission to address historical inequities in land access and ownership with the launch of the Land in...

This grant program was made possible by a $50,000 contribution from Scenic Hudson’s Climate and Environmental Justice Fund and supports BIPOC farmers and growers who often enter the field with limited access to resources and financial challenges. Land in Black Hands (LIBH) is a program of the Kingston Land Trust (KLT) dedicated to amplifying the voices and addressing the needs of BIPOC individuals who have endured generations of land and sovereignty dispossession.

We are committed to centering the voices and needs of people of color, and specifically Black people, in our work around land access, Ownership, livelihood through the land, and land conservation.

Partnering with and Sponsoring Black-led Organizations:

On Sunday, February 17, 2019 Black History Month Kingston, in partnership with the Kingston Land Trust, The Hudson Valley Farm Hub and Scenic Hudson presented The Possibility of Land in Black Hands, a discussion about land access and economic development strategies in black communities.

Speakers shared their experiences...