Higher and Higher
We are proud to announce the second 2020 Black Love Day Community Warrior-Healer-Builder Honoree, Baba/ Brother K. Rashid Nuri– a food revolutionary.
Rashid, in his new book Growing Out Loud, asks a powerful question: “What is more revolutionary than a seed? Once planted, the seed bursts through clay, sand, rock, concrete – whatever to fulfill the purpose imprinted in its DNA.” Rashid doesn’t just plant seeds; he is a seed - breaking through. This see has been nurtured by the Jamaican Maroons flowing through is veins, by the African, Asian, and Latin American liberation movements of the 60s, and more. We can eat better because of him. Attend this Black Love celebration. Feb. 13th 7pm.
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Higher and Higher..
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The beginning of a Huffington Post article on Baba Rashid begins
“The older man steps out of a gray Chrysler Grand Voyager. He wears a tan fisherman’s cap and a brown tee topped with a plaid work shirt. People chat as they fill baskets with carrots, chard, kale, collards, lettuce, onions, cabbage, and mustard. The man briskly moves from person to person, hearing the day’s news or making sure the necessary tasks are completed. He stoops to take a quick check of the soil. Feels it run through his hands.”
“I’m reminded of a Sterling Brown’s After Winter:
He snuggles his fingers
In the blacker loam
The lean months are done with
The fat to come.
His eyes are set
On a brushwood-fire
But his heart is soaring
Higher and higher.
Though he stands ragged
An old scarecrow,
This is the way
His swift thoughts go,
“Butter beans fo’ Clara
Sugar Corn fo’ Grace
An’ fo’ de little feller
Runnin ‘ space.
Rashid’s heart is soaring higher and higher, and we are Clara, Grace, and De’ Little Fella.
His snuggling fingers helped to create, nurture and ultimately pass on Truly Living Well (TLW) Center for Natural Urban Agriculture. From a backyard plot in Riverdale to small farms on Harbin, then Washington Road, to Good Shepherd Farm, then to Wheat Street in downtown Atlanta, and finally to Collegetown, TLW fed thousands, employed hundreds, and became a model and inspiration for Urban Agriculture locally, nationally, and internationally.
TLW uses food production as a plate on which to create a culture of self-sufficiency, health, and wellness in our community. For Rashid, it’s much more than that. Rashid has turned over the reins of TLW to continue his revolutionary journey.
The Lean months are done with - the fat to come.
Patience, daily work, and long vision are the virtues of the builder. Precisely because they are involved in the day-to-day work along with others, the “why” can get lost. Rashid will not let it. He wants to stop the destructiveness of Big Agriculture with the transformative power of the local food economy to sustain community vitality. We want to help him. We want to lift him.
Simba Simbi: Holding up that which holds us up. Join us on Feb. 13th.