“Wild rice is culturally significant to Aniishinabe people here in Minnesota. It’s our connection to the land, water and our ancestors…I had a friend say that Aniishinabeg people, if we were to lose this plant, we would lose a huge chunk of ourselves,” Goose says.

“My sister and I this past fall were finishing our rice, and I had so much respect for my ancestors and how hard that work is —to dry the rice, parch it, and winnow it—is a whole process from start to finish.”

Goose is also passing the sacred traditions on to future generations – as much as she can. Wild rice is under threat from climate impacts, unchecked pollution and overdevelopment, causing contamination, sea level rise, disruptions of freshwater wetlands and more.

But Native people have been the stewards of the waters in their territories for tens of thousands of years, just as we have been stewards of the land. In this second part of our two-part series, we dive deeper into some challenges of water stewardship and how Indigenous voices in regions across the continental U.S. rise to the call of Mother Àwęˀkęhaˀnęˀ (Water, Skarure) to protect her and all life dependent on water. 

Saying no to pipelines

In the Great Lakes Region and Midwest, Enbridge, a Canadian-based pipeline operator in the Great Lakes, has faced controversy for decades.  

Their 1960s Line 3 pipeline through the Great Lakes region caused one of the biggest inland oil  spills in US history in 1991. Occurring in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, it spilled 1.7 million gallons into Prairie River – a tributary of the Mississippi.

The line weakened over time. The Minnesota Dept of Commerce reports 15 failures since 1990, resulting in more than 50 barrels of oil per incident. Corrosion and cracking prompted over 950 excavations since 2000 alone, and 10 times as many “anomalies” per mile than any other pipeline in the Mainline corridor. All told, Enbridge has since paid more than $11 million to address environmental damage from Line 3. 

In 2010, they had the second largest inland oil spill, estimated at 843,000 gallons at Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River, a tributary to Lake Michigan.

Ogimaa Giniw Ikwe is a citizen of Miskwaagamiiwi-Zaagaiganing (Red Lake Nation),  where she’s been “deeply involved with the work of water protection and conservation and those types of things throughout Minnesota for probably the last dozen years.” 

She’s not convinced that Enbridge is doing all they can to preserve wetlands, like those in Minnesota where their Line 3 pipeline runs. “In places with shifty ground, they took steel panels and drove them in so the pipeline was stabilized, and fractured a number of underground aquifers, including artesian aquifers that are not easily replaceable,” Giniw Ikwe says.

An estimated 280 million gallons of groundwater spilled from the ruptures, largely tracked and reported by environmental and Indigenous groups. Thermal imaging showing 45 spots along the pipeline where warmer groundwater appeared to surface. There were four major sites in or near tribal lands, treaty territories or wild rice lakes, from 2021 to 2023. 

The water losses occurred while climate change is rapidly shifting weather patterns. Minnesota endured multi-year drought, even severe drought conditions, increasing risk of wildfires.

But the officials did not lay blame on these massive industrial leaks. There was controversy raised as officials primarily blamed farmers, claiming over-pumping of aquifer water to crops. Giniw Ikwe disagrees.

“I think that aquifer damage had a much stronger play in what’s happening,” says Giniw Ikwe.

“Then this stuff (contaminants) sinks to the bottom, damaging delicate wetlands areas, which filters out clean water and ensures water in Minnesota can trickle down into aquifer systems, and that’s where they laid this pipeline. So it’s been really contentious.”

She refers to the resulting pooling mix of breached aquifer water, drilling fluid and grout used to patch the breaches as a potential hazard to the wetlands and groundwater, even after so-called repairs.

Looking to the future

Many people across the region were deeply opposed to the installation of a new/reparative pipeline, questioning its need. And states like Michigan are still fighting in court over a cease and desist issued years prior to stop the flow entirely.

But groups are pumping out solutions as well.

Leanna Goose works as a co-facilitator and organizer for Rise and Repair, an alliance of organizations advancing legislative climate justice in Minnesota. She does research in the Protecting Manoomin for the Next Seven Generations project, which studies wildlife and addresses challenges proactively. 

There are more than 17 species of wild rice indigenous to her research area listed as a Species of Greatest Conservation Need by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. They are essential to biodiversity and support a thriving ecosystem, clean water, and human life. It’s particularly sensitive during the “floating leaf” stage, and water fluctuations can disrupt an entire rice bed. 

“This past ricing season was a tough one for manoomin. A lot of the rice beds were washed out in the spring. There was a lot of precipitation, and then a drought the last part of summer,” Goose says. With Rise and Repair, Goose is advancing legislation to hopefully make future ricing seasons easier.

“We’re trying to recognize the inherent right of wild rice to exist and thrive – that all living beings have a right to be here just like we do. This legislation brings that culture of respect to all of Minnesota and creates systemic change, where we don’t just view the world around us as natural resources, but as living beings we share this earth with – as relatives.”

Beth Roach is a Nottoway tribal leader, seedkeeper, entrepreneur, and Water Protector. She’s also national campaign manager for the Sierra Club, one of the most historic grassroots environmental organizations in the country. 

“For the last two years, I’ve been building a new national water conservation campaign for the Sierra Club that advances water protection under the Clean Water Act,” Roach says.

The work she does is a personal imperative as much as a professional one. She talked about the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline Protest  slogan “Water is Life”, and how that moment of championing clean water rights lifted many tribal voices protecting our waters throughout Turtle Island (The Americas).

“We often see our ancestors, ourselves, and future generations of the earth itself, therefore we are instructed to nurture and steward these gifts as if all life depends on them,” says Roach.

“When I’m cleaning trash off shorelines and pulling tires out of the river, I have an embodied feeling that those items will not be doing harm to my waters anymore. When I’m advocating for stronger policies, I know that I’m demanding a future that we need to see. When I’m planting seeds and tending to the soil, I know that I’m doing my part to pass on this knowledge to the next generation. When I’m learning about climate adaptation strategies, I know that I’m giving the next generation a fighting chance.” 

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Mary Oxendine grew up in Robeson County, NC, among the Lumbee people. As a child of multigenerational farmers, she grew up picking peas and butterbeans, working with her grandmother making sausages, and plucking chickens. 

As an adult, she worked her way up in the local government’s food security program.  But when her father passed, she found herself reconnecting with farmers in the fields.   

“I was looking for what made me feel grounded and what made me feel like I belonged. And, I just started growing things. I got a community plot at Hawk’s Nest Healing Gardens… and really felt like I was reconnecting with myself and with the land and with my ancestors,” says Oxendine. “For me, it’s really about having a deep relationship with the plants and with the rest of nature, caring for them like you would actual family—gently picking up their branches. There’s a deep relationship and reciprocity, because I care for them and then they care for me.” 

Oxendine says this interconnectedness colors her every choice and step and that it is inherently an Indigenous mindset. 

“If we spray an insecticide, yes, maybe it kills that one insect, but it also could potentially impact other pollinators that will decrease my yield,” says Oxendine. “It’s impacting birds and the ecosystem and affecting the water and drinkability of water for humans, but also the water toxins that are impacting fish and other wildlife in the water. To me, the best way to impact climate is before you do something, think deeply and ask what are the real impacts of that act.”

Historic violent storms, destructive floods, rising sea levels and melting polar ice caps dominate our lives and headlines. But, are we past the point of no return, or can we still have a positive impact on the planet and life on it?

Climate scientists and US leaders believe so, although the window is narrow.

But how can we change course, and who has the answers? Oxendine believes Native farmers deserve a word.

Native environmental views can fight climate change 

Despite measures taken since, human activity and the El Nino phenomenon continued to accelerate global warming to the point of experiencing the hottest years on record in 2023 and 2024. One wonders, with cutting-edge scientific advances, national and international mitigations, and an increasingly common understanding of climate change, why does the problem persist so tenaciously?

Beth Roach is a member of the Nottoway Indians of Virginia. She is also the co-founder and owner of Alliance of Native Seedkeepers, Bertie County Seeds retail shop, and Quitsna Conniot ancestral gardens with Justin “Fix” Račhakwáhstha Cain, who is Tuscarora (Skaroreh Katenuaka).

They both have extensive lived experience as land stewards, as well as deep multi-generational connections to agriculture and forestry stewardship.

“We study our local environment intensely [all day, every day] and notice both subtle and dramatic changes,” says Roach. “From these observations, we adapt our practices. We anticipate changes in our growing zones and educate others. We advocate for climate adaptation planning through Indigenous frameworks.”

They were able to ascertain early that the hardiness zone where they live was shifting due to climate change, and are already taking preventative steps to nurture seeds and plants that would be endangered. As important as modern-day scientific methods and data are, they also have a unique take on understanding our woodlands ecosystem by learning from the past.

“We utilize traditional place names and translate them in order to understand how our ancestors saw the water and land,” says Roach. “Additionally, we use these translations to assess changes in our ecosystem and climate.” 

Roach and her colleagues believe that Native people know the story of the land, and have the connections through lived experience, oral histories passed down, blood memory and documented history to understand where it has been, what their ancestors observed, and what it needs to thrive into the future.

And the land responds in kind to mindful stewardship. For example, simple but measured clearing of invasive plants, such as cultural burning, yields surprising results when Earth is allowed to finally breathe. Native plants spring up once again from the freed soil. Loving fertilized with the ash of its stewards, the forest is cleansed of excessive pests and invasives safely for established growth to flourish.

However, industrial carbon dioxide, PFAS, chlorines, bromides, CFCs and plastics harm air quality and increase temperatures, accumulate in rain and waterways or deplete protective ozone layers and cause contamination long after their release. Not only is the story of the land unknown, unwanted, and dishonored by apathetic corporate self-serving, it is actively quashed by intimidation, violence and legislative manipulation. And the land responds to this as well.

A climate-conscious approach must first honor the land, its people, and its story.

Creating programs for and with Native people 

One of the programs created to put Native voices first in the discussion of climate change is First Nations Development Institute’s Stewarding Native Lands program. It has offices in Nevada and New Mexico, and serves tribes as well as Native nonprofits across the nation and it has five program areas. The stewardship program overlaps with food sovereignty and cultural programs because they are so intertwined culturally.

The stewardship program has four initiatives, and one that specifically addresses climate. Mary Adelzadeh, senior program officer with the institute, has much to say regarding increasing the capacity of Native land stewardship models. She also stresses operating from a mindset and position of strength—as overcomers—not victims.

“Because when you think about this climate challenge, it is rooted in the fact that Native people and their knowledge was contained onto reservation systems, and in order to really have a transformative change in climate, we really need to invest in the adaptive capacity of these Native communities, to be able to scale it out.”  

The Stewarding Native Lands program works toward supporting co-management and co-stewardship of federal lands. These are sovereign-to-sovereign agreements, where tribes could enter into these arrangements with federal entities such as the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, and National Park Service.

Their focus is land access, establishing and bolstering the workforce, and the nuts and bolts of what it would take to scale Native land stewardship. The traditional Western conservation frameworks weren’t designed for and are not really accessible to tribes. Her approach is that new conservation, finance, opportunities that are directly accessible to tribes should be decided upon.

Along the lines of investment, Amir Kirkwood, CEO of Justice Climate Fund, spoke about their works with programs empowering such endeavors. One is the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator (CCIA) program, part of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) program.

“That program was really designed to have community lenders—could be banks, CDFIs, could be other funds—that did not have existing climate or greenhouse gas reduction programs in place, to basically fund their ability to build a program at their individual organization for the benefit of the communities,” he says.

The fund was awarded $940 million on August 16. The idea is that by working with those banks at the community level, they can help them to not only deploy capital in greenhouse gas reductions but raise outside capital to compliment federal funding, and utilize that as wrap-around funding for initiatives with additional community benefits—such as job creation, supporting local businesses, or contributing to better health outcomes in those communities. 

“So, that’s where community banks have always been a valuable asset locally, is that they have that comprehensive focus on the communities. And so, this is exciting because it’s able to add to what they already do, with some of the work around climate finance as well,” says Kirkwood. 

Reclaiming land

Some independent projects are already having groundbreaking impact in their communities as well as restorative climate implications. One such initiative is Makoce Ikikcupi, a Reparative Justice project on Dakota land in Minisota Makoce (Minnesota). Ahán Heȟáka Sápa (Luke Black Elk, Thitȟuŋwaŋ Lakota) works with the program as a farm director. It’s a Dakota-run organization out of Minnesota, and the name actually means “Land Reclamation.”

Currently, they have purchased three separate pieces of land situated throughout Minnesota, and Ahán Heȟáka Sápa is the farm director for their second village site, Hohwoju Otunwe (Village of Vibrant Growth). It is located near Mountain Lake, Minnesota, which is a small town in southern Minnesota. There are a couple of different groups, or what’s modernly called tribes. But they all fall under what they call the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, which means the Seven Councils Fires. 

“One of the things that Indigenous people really lack is access to land. My tribe has control of two million acres on the books, but really we only have about a million acres accessible to our people. And even then, we have been taught by the capitalist education system that we should be sort of fearful in going outside and picking natural plants or you know, even so much as growing your own food,” says Ahán Heȟáka Sápa.

They consider themselves to be free Oceti people, and aren’t funded by any tribal organization or tribal entity, to avoid a precedent of Native people buying land back with their own money. 

“We don’t want to set a precedent for our children to have to find their own funding and use their own money to do this, because it’s really still ours, this land that we’re around. All of Minnesota was once Dakota territory and we really feel strongly about coming back to this area,” says Ahán Heȟáka Sápa.

Chana J. White is a mother, grandmother, farmer, and Master Beekeeper. She works with Whitaker Small Farm Group and Eastern North Carolina Farmer Collaborative, and also owns and operates Native Brand Honey. One challenge faced even in Indigenous circles is disenfranchisement from cultural and foodways; however, White speaks of the benefits of access to oral histories and elder wisdom, which she can pass on to next generations of agriculturalists and climate keepers.

“Thankfully, we have some old heads still around that let us know and have taught us when to plant root crops, above the ground crops, when to seed, and when to pull weeds. We even watch certain animals because they know when rain is coming. I believe it’s important to listen and pay attention,” she says.

Can we imagine a society that honors the Earth instead of exploiting it?

This will only happen as Native voices are sought for solutionary committees and legislative decisions in every locale, compensated for their contributions, and renewed to their ancestral homelands for restorative land stewardship and ownership.

Beth Roach can see it also. “Ensuring Native engagement and leadership of our water, land, and seeds ensures protection of each for many more generations to come. Inspired by the traditional wisdom of seven-generational thinking, we envision a future where our children and theirs can thrive in harmony with the Earth, cradling their culture and justice in equal measure,” she says.

The post How Native Farmers Pair Ancestral Knowledge with Climate Expertise appeared first on Modern Farmer.

His hometown of East Cleveland is now his focal point. While 89 percent of East Cleveland residents are Black, and 40 percent of them live in poverty, millions in purchasing dollars still leak into outsiders’ business interests. Further, within the small community sit over 500 vacant properties—indicating a ripe opportunity for self-sustaining growth.

“East Cleveland—it’s three-and-a-half square miles. It’s not a neighborhood of Cleveland, it’s its own municipality. There’s a fire department, police department, but within the city there is no grocery store, right? There is just no space of gathering that’s an intergenerational space that’s not fast food or a bar, you know? For me as a chef from the city, I want to come and bring some things that we deserve in our communities,” says Samad. And with that desire, Loiter was born.

“People need places to hang out,” says Samad, “and you can’t hang out in our communities without looking like criminals, so, therefore, the only folks allowed to build our communities back are folks who are not current residents. The recipe is very clear.”

Samad serves as Loiter’s chief equity officer and co-owns the nonprofit with his sister Alima Samad—a seasoned business growth consultant—who leads entrepreneurship and organizational development. They created Loiter to fill the gaping void of holistic, soul-nourishing Black hospitality spaces, among the few left by a glaring lack of development support and antagonistic regulatory environment. 

During the project’s design phase, community members provided input and research was conducted with the Harvard Law School Food and Law Policy Clinic. They identified strategies for profit-generating, community food systems in East Cleveland with an eye on “increasing the power and financial well-being of residents.” 

Along those lines, Loiter’s mission is to “confront the effects of systemic racism and encourage the intentional re-investment needed to build successful community-owned enterprises.” 

To do so, Loiter powers an ecosystem of businesses: a cafe and micro-market, an affirmative foods company, and a Black business incubator, among others. The organization purchases from, employs, houses, and empowers Black and BIPOC makers—primarily from the East Cleveland area. Each component of the Loiter model nourishes the community. The heart of the operation is a high-quality food hub and cafe. The cafe sources baked goods from local, mom-n-pop operations and BIPOC East Cleveland residents.

Coffee, tea, honey, and chocolate are either grown, processed, or produced by local Black businesses, POC collaboratives, or urban farms. Even the ice cream is locally Black-owned—by Ibrahim Colvin of Colvin’s Sweet Cremery. It features cultural flavors such as sweet potato pie ice cream (sourcing pie from Shareef’s Pie in the Sky), a vanilla “bean pie” flavor, and a red velvet cake flavor.

Building Black Control of Their Food System

To foster a self-controlled food system, Loiter works through Wake Robin—its affirmative fermented foods company acquired in 2013—to purchase from local Black growers. “They’re growing our tea purchased from a Black woman who is also roasting our coffee. The chocolate [for Loiter’s Chocolate Rebellion] comes from the Cross Atlantic Chocolate Collective,” explains Samad. It also plans an opening of the Chocolate Farmhouse, slated for this winter. 

This approach isn’t just about sustainability, but self-determination, says Samad. “So, you can make an argument [that] the most sustainable cafe is in the poorest city in the state. How did that happen? Well, because we rallied behind injustice and created environmental justice solutions that are led by us.” 

“The solution I would like to see is that we band together and create the narrative necessary for our people of color. We are not here to look for someone to save us. We are here to save each other.” — Mikki Smith of African Land Collective 

Ultimately, Loiter creates a self-sufficient cycle of building and scaling small businesses—which creates Main Street-level retail shops in an incubator fashion—from startup to grand opening. Loiter helps them scale and grow into their own storefronts, with services such as business advising and technical assistance.

Loiter’s name is multi-layered: meaning Love-Opportunity-Investment-Transformation-Equity-Reparations/Restitutions-Now(!). It represents the self-described ”freedom to explore without fear, gather together, and reclaim our space,” and challenges notions of loitering—labeled as an offense when a person lingers in an area for no apparent reason—historically targeting the Black community. 

Samad categorizes loitering laws as the criminalization of innocent social behavior, which demonizes the most sedate forms of Black relaxation—associating and eating together. To the Samad siblings, “loitering” simply means dwelling in a sense of neighborhood safety and belonging, and that’s what their organization represents, too.

“People need places to hang out,” says Samad, “and you can’t hang out in our communities without looking like criminals, so, therefore, the only folks allowed to build our communities back are folks who are not current residents. The recipe is very clear.”

Despite the clear community support, Loiter’s emergence wasn’t without strife. The new cafe and market are housed in a renovated building that is part of the larger Circle East development in East Cleveland—a five-phase, 30-acre, and estimated $122-million commercial development project owned by Cuyahoga Land Bank.

The land bank leveraged the Samads’ decades-long, sterling reputations as area natives to win resident approval, and acquired millions in funding due to its association with the development. But, in late spring of 2024, Loiter had its sign removed and was unceremoniously locked out of its space by Cuyahoga Land Bank, which intended to terminate Loiter’s lease.

Cuyahoga Land Bank claims Loiter violated their agreement by installing commonly floor-bolted commercial furniture during the cafe buildout phase prior to opening, claimed issues with electricity, requested Loiter change its name to better align with the development’s “vision,” and opposed signage installation.

To the community, this had all the hallmarks of a bad-faith effort to use the Samads’ clout and promise of Black-led community rehabilitation to secure millions in funding, only to turn its back on Loiter once the Samads were no longer needed.

Despite Cuyahoga Land Bank’s efforts to evict Loiter and flip the property, the Samads were not cowed. If anything, the conflict underscored the community’s ongoing need for a space like Loiter.

And the Samads put their money where their intentions are. They invested more than $150,000 and aim to remain as a fixture, creating citizen entrepreneurship opportunities, providing financial education and mutual support. To protect their investment, they fought back in the courts.

Loiter filed suit against Cuyahoga Land Bank on June 20, claiming delays on the developer’s part with operational basics such as electrical access and water sub-metering. The developer countersued, and the legal battle continues. On July 11, Loiter was granted an injunction, which allowed it to successfully open in the space and ordered Cuyahoga Land Bank to replace its signage.

Samad was perplexed and disappointed that things devolved to an antagonistic legal battle instead of respectful and constructive face-to-face communication with Cuyahoga Land Bank. 

“Even though we’re open, we still have to deal with the realities of the community feeling like our needs and our voices were not heard, and that we had to go through the process in a legal system instead of being able to talk with one another—to have a real conversation about how we can move forward, right? What can we do together? So, we still have not had that conversation with them. So, we are open. But we still have to deal with that conversation around what does this all mean?”

Nevertheless, Loiter and its community stakeholders are optimistic that the pending sale of the renovated property to a biotech company holds a fresh start to collaborate with new ownership. The prospective buyers plan significant property investments, including the construction of a laboratory and co-working space. 

“We are looking forward to seeing who the new buyer is, and if we can restart the conversation with the new owner to see how community voices can be present in development efforts from people prospecting in the city,” says Samad.

Despite the setbacks, Loiter is now fully operational. They had their soft opening by August 10, within the court-mandated deadline. Their grand opening was held September 28, and they are open regular hours Tuesday to Saturday 8am to 6pm. “We’re excited about our ecosystem having a platform, being a critical space in the city. And a lot of our makers and growers and producers are really excited to sell their produce, and have it go into products being made throughout the whole system and having the cafe featuring them. So, we’re excited to show what the collective is trying to do,” says Samad.

The Samads’ dream for Loiter expands beyond the building walls to additional initiatives. “It’s the whole integrated thing,” says Samad. “You can’t build a community just by saying you need a grocery store, right? You can’t fix these policies that set up food deserts and food swamps and create apartheid realities just by addressing food access.You have to fix the environmental needs, too.” 

So, the Samads set out to address poverty. In 2021, on a 3.5-acre long-abandoned car lot they created the Euclid Avenue Farmer’s Market, a bustling center of produce stands, food trucks, and pop-up markets. The farmers and vendors now align their capacity with Loiter’s cafe and market—providing them consistent and stable income through that retail access. 

The Political and Economic Climate

Access is really the issue. Jennifer Lumpkin, an environmental justice advocate and founder of My Grow Connect, works with food policy and is a Loiter farmers market supplier. Lumpkin spoke about the political climate in which community members live. 

“One must understand the political ineptitude that exists in East Cleveland, exacerbated by the lack of financial resources, means and ways to remediate the ills of food apartheid, environmental and social injustice,” she says.

Lumpkin and other food justice leaders maintain that critical attention to systemic issues undermining Black ownership of their own consumer economy is long overdue.

“Land acquisition, stewardship, or lease in any of Cuyahoga county’s vacant or abandoned properties are unavailable and owned by the municipality. Or the process by which to apply, meet the criteria, and actually own land is reserved for a select and small minority within a minority,” says Lumpkin.

A similar sentiment is voiced by Mikki Smith, a farmer, Cleveland local, and the executive director of Little Africa Food Co-op, a collaboration of urban farms addressing food insecurity at the community level. 

“We are the ones that have the most as relates to buying power,” says Smith. “But, we have the least amount of ownership in our community. And that needs to stop.”

Smith understands Loiter’s goals, and she sees food co-operatives with Black ownership as a direct fight against the monopolization of their food system limiting Black economic growth. Redline zoning practices and a litany of civic limitations to what urban farms may grow, how they can grow and fertilize it, and who is allowed to do so produce an overall micro-management effect that harkens backward to sharecropper-era mindsets. 

Smith cites programs such as the Summer Sprout classes and Gardening for Greenbacks programs—which restricts entry and dictates seeds provided. They either prohibit produce sales or require a sales contract and downpayment—limiting citizens to either hobbyist gardening or government-controlled foodways, while stifling Black growth and agricultural diversity. 

In contrast, Loiter plugs ultra-accessibility into each initiative. Some producers are even offered housing or home improvement potential through Loiter Sanctuary Homes, earning residents additional income from agritourism and short-term rentals.

Motivation and Momentum 

Despite the legal setbacks, systemic ills, and harsh political landscape, Samad stays unwaveringly enthusiastic about Loiter’s mission, and he is quick to highlight the contributions of other community members, not just his own. When asked about his childhood in East Cleveland, he was effusive about the neighborhood pride that inspires them, “We had a thriving community that was predominantly Black. Growing up, it was just a beautiful place to be. And then, we went through the same predictable stuff. That’s what happens when you don’t put resources and love into spaces, and when you enact unprincipled policies and ignore the needs of a community. But, that said, it was a beautiful place to exist. Because there were a lot of different communities committed to family and community.”

Among their remarkable traits is their knack for gathering allies and quietly disrupting status-quo food violence—the system blithely segregating, under-educating, bankrupting, sickening and killing communities of color. Although Loiter sits amid deeply entrenched bias, the Samads center solutions—healing through a thriving food economy and promoting city-wide policy changes, such as legalizing composting.

Samad sees Loiter as one step in an overarching strategy of greater resident agency. “Naturally, what we need is investment in our Main Streets and in us, and opportunity to actually own the culture people are moving to enjoy, right? We don’t have to have a dominant culture develop our neighborhoods.” 

In order for residents to emerge as empowered community leaders, the latent talent of younger generations requires constructive guidance and education also.

“Our kids need stuff to do, right? Health and wellness go hand in hand. So, we do culinary medicine workshops and teach different sports. Like we did a tennis camp. We did a horseback riding camp a couple of summers ago. This summer, we had Pilates,” says Samad.

This is vital to the “EC pride” that characterized the Samad’s youth, when he recalls neighborhood community clean-ups, support through challenges, and excellent education. 

Samad reminisced on the community’s beautiful magnet elementary school. But by middle school, his parents pulled them out for homeschooling, as the school system, parks and recreation, and programming saw increasing divestment to higher tax bracket communities. Their community was drained dry. But this was a microcosm of the national phenomenon of the time.

Those shockwaves resounded countrywide as the Reagan Administration weaponized the federal budget for political agendas, slashing education and infrastructure budgets with an aggressive stance toward “federalism” in public benefits such as education funding, amid vocal bipartisan Congressional resistance. The administration proselytized its war on drugs and increased defense spending. But its domestic tranquility divestment ultimately destabilized the thriving small communities most vulnerable to federal budget cuts. 

Against this backdrop, East Cleveland felt the sharp wound of federal impact and urban flight after lackluster state and municipal funding. Yet, an embedded core community persisted to eke out happiness. They shoveled each other’s snow and picked up one another’s trash with a sense of mutual belonging. This caring and self-determination is what Loiter hopes to embody.

Mikki Smith of African Land Collective agrees. “The solution I would like to see is that we band together and create the narrative necessary for our people of color. We are not here to look for someone to save us. We are here to save each other.”

Samad summarizes it best: “We’re trying to put forth a strategy that includes community voice with our assets and celebrates our culture in spaces that are owned by us collaboratively, and that could be building ownership, strategy ownership, IP, narratives. So we have it all within our communities. We just need the opportunity to let that stuff shine.”

The post Loiter: East Cleveland Fights for Food Power in a Harsh Climate appeared first on Modern Farmer.