Skip to main content

Building To Revere Our Ancestors


AYA announces its 2019 Black Building Love awardees: Whitney Jaye and Brandon Stephens. If you know AYA, you know that we see everything through the Warrior-Healer-Builder lens. Everyone, it seems, lifts our warrior or healer selves and efforts. The builder in us and in our community (including growers) often are an afterthought or are taken for granted. Let’s change that. Help us lift up this couple's efforts to build family, farm, and businesses that serve our people - first. Comment below, and come out on Saturday night to celebrate Black building love.
www.blacklovedinner.com

Building To Revere Our Ancestors
“I wanted to kick it with her,” said Brandon, so I had to get my process together. Less than a month before they had met at an OutdoorAfro Backcountry Camping event where Whitney had critiqued Brandon’s growing process. Brandon’s craft was hydroponics, Whitney had a more traditional approach to food - ‘good food grows in the soil.’ He was used to people being suspect of hydroponics, but he couldn’t shake one criticism. “Using that material, it’s just not sustainable,” she said.
That material was Rockwool which is not biodegradable. Brandon was a little messed up about it. It took him a month, but he conceded that she was right, and now was trying to revamp his process to reach a sustainability standard and maybe a little more.
Ready now, he arranged to meet Whitney at Mrs. D’s in the West End. Brandon said he wanted to talk farm stuff. Whitney thought he wanted to get plugged in with the Black farming community in Atlanta that she knew very well. Back and forth, their farming conversation became a marathon moving from Mrs. D’s to Healthful Essence; then to Tassili’s, 95th Street Tacos, Bakari’s Pizza, and Q-Time. For that evening, Black-owned food had become the plate upon which their burgeoning relationship was served. They suspected but didn’t know that Black-owned food - farming and service would be their plate for times to come.
Between sustainability and Black farming, Whitney had seen him. “He had a strong vision - and wanted to
have homestead; a life on land. His clarity was something that I hadn’t experienced in my generation,” said Whitney. It was attractive. Brandon loved Whitney’s bold audacity. “She challenged me; plus we were interested in the same things. Our visions were in alignment. I knew we could work.”
If their aligned visions were their wings, their histories were their roots. Both of them hail from families with long, deep roots in the southern soil. Whitney is a proud Coastal Carolinian who can't imagine herself living a purposeful life that's not land-based. She says that nothing she can do is in alignment without land. For her, it's a form of ancestral reverence, it’s the deepest calling.
Brandon’s family hails from Greene and Warren Counties, east of Atlanta. Farming was always around him. His grandfather gardening meant extra hands were always needed. His grandparents, parents, and aunt pulled their resources to buy the 8 acres land that he and Whitney have now turned into Semente Farms.
Brandon and Whitney have decided to raise their dreams on these ancestral acres. Brandon admits, "It hasn’t always been rosy; the work of getting a farm into production and building a marriage to sustain it is challenging work.
Whitney says, “ We approach conflict head on - the only way to solve it is to face it. “Jumping in, saying here is exactly what I'm feeling, and being committed to listening is how we deal with conflict and still tend to each other's needs.” For Brandon, the ability to be self-sufficient makes it all worthwhile.
Healing and building on the land which our ancestors walked nurtures their love for each other. In turn, their love nourishes the community. Semente Farm is a place for us!
We are grateful for their work - the Building Love and invite you to join us in uplifting this power couple! Doing so uplifts the builders in us all.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

White Images in the Black Mind - The Color of Christ and White Supremacy

Wekesa O. Madzimoyo Take a look at Roland Martin's take on the white Jesus issue. Here "To whom much is given....” This one is for my Christian family and friends who may have slipped back into the "color of Christ doesn't matter" thinking. I don't have this discussion much anymore. Dr. Yosef Ben Jochannan settled it for me 40 + years ago, and I've not looked back since. (Dr. Ben's link at the end of this post.) In fact, I've moved forward. But this post isn't about me or religion, per se, and it's certainly not about getting you to change your faith. It's more about "racial scripting" than scripture. It's about religion as a tool for white supremacy and the domination of our people - African people. It's about our believing that God's loves for us (and God's presence in us) is not dependent on us bowing to or ignoring images of white Jesus/God/angels. It's about us caring about the psycholo

Falsification of African Consciousness - Weekend Academy Special

Web-Conference Weekend  Academy Special! AYA offers many courses designed to prepare adults and youth for advanced historical, social, and psychological analysis and synthesis. Useful for in both the university of life and academic universities, these courses will meet together on the weekends on starting Saturday, Sept. 27th. Register today! Due to popular demand, we'll offer two special courses as a part of our national web-conference-based Weekend Academy so that student who attend other institutions, home school students, and adults who work can partake. The two courses are: Falsification of African Consciousness based on the work of Dr. Amos N. Wilson The course is an introduction to Amos N. Wilson - his mission and his works. The course explores:  How  Eurocentric history-writing rationalizes and justifies European oppression of Afrikan peoples How that process creates a  false Afrikan consciousness - one possessed by an alien consciousness that serves

2020 Community Warrior-Healer-Builder Love Honoree: Mama Nobantu Ankoanda

We are proud to announce the 2020 Black Love Day Community Warrior-Healer-Builder Love Honorees. In this oppressive environment to fight, heal, and build are revolutionary acts. One of the three Community Warrior-Healer-Builder Love honorees is Mama Nobantu Ankoanda Before you can say “lets,” Mama Nobantu is in the van saying, “C’mon, let’s go.” Before you can say, “I need…” Nobantu has opened her house, extended her hand and her heart. She’s a Warrior-Healer-Building Mama! Her children grew up knowing that their mother belonged to our community. Mama Nobantu Ankoanda is an educator, teacher, former principal and founder of Afrikan centered community-based institutions in Palo Alto, California and in the Atlanta, GA Metro area. Mama Ankoanda is also Dr. Mama Nobantu. She holds a doctoral degree in Education, a Master of Arts degrees in Elementary Education and a BA in Social work. She’s earned this Black Community Warrior-Healer-Builder award because she’s been spreading love