Two urban farmers band together to establish the “Detroit Black Farmer Fund”. This GoFundMe was made with the specific goal of creating a black owned farm to help serve the people of Detroit. Rhonda J. Smith of Planet Detroit reports, “It took them 20 minutes to reach their goal. The campaign ultimately raised nearly $55,000.”
“Tepirah Rushdan was talking to her best friend about how they could help Black people in Detroit own the land where they farmed, and they just decided to go for it. The two urban farmers decided to create a GoFundMe to raise $5,000 to do that.”
“That demonstrates what the need is,” said Jerry Hebron, executive director of Oakland Avenue Urban Farm. She joined Rushdan on the project, called the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund. “When you have Black farmers trying to make a living, we don’t need them to be land insecure.”
“Providing Black farmers with land security was one of the reasons Hebron, Rushdan and representatives from the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN) D-Town Farm launched the GoFundMe campaign.”
Rushdan, who is also co-director of the nonprofit Keep Growing Detroit (KGD), told Detour that while the impetus for the project may have been an immediate need of a few, the traction showed her she could tackle a more entrenched problem: the disparity in land acquisition between Blacks and whites.
Detroit Has Plenty of Black Farmers, but Few Who Own Their Land
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad has taught us that our unity is more powerful than an atomic bomb, we can see the evidence of what we can accomplish together as a people. This is very important as we now the importance of doing for self.
NNV Writer Hasan Ali
