TENDING | Black Farmers Fight for Justice Against the USDA

Shirlette Ammons shares her thought process on developing* *TENDING*** ***Black Farmers Fight for Justice Against the USDA (an audio documentary)

Ammons is a poet, storyteller, and musician, but most importantly, the granddaughter of a Black farmer.

Ammons traveled across 7 states, including my native North Carolina. Roamed the fields & farmland, sat on the porches, and ate at the dinner tables of some of the tens of thousands of Black farmers across the country who were claimants in Pigford vs Glickman, once the largest class action lawsuit in US history.

The question about this audio documentary:

Why has the United States, its federal and its local governments, worked so strategically to keep Black people from owning and stewarding land?

Shirlette Ammons is a Black queer southern truth teller. She is a poet and musician who has also served as a producer on Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning TV & film projects. She is also an identical twin who hails from a tiny, wonderfully named pocket of eastern North Carolina earth called Beautancus.