By Rev. Dr. Heber Brown III
This month, I’ll head down to rural Virginia to a small town called Kilmarnock in order to celebrate the life of my great uncle, Dwight O’Neal Caster. Preparing for his homegoing caused me to reflect on the significant time that I spent as a child in rural Virginia. I remember when school let out for the summer, my parents often took us “down the country.” There, my brother, Anthony, and I were introduced to a world that in some ways was so different from the urban environs of Baltimore City.
Our great-grandmother, Geraldine Caster Wilson, who was affectionately known as “Mama Geraldine,” was our guide to this new world. We would watch her work in her garden, observe the mason jars that preserved her harvests, pump water from her well and marvel as she made elaborate quilts that would keep us warm on cold nights. It was down in the country where we were free to run and play on our family’s seemingly endless acres.
These experiences during my formative years were my initial orientation to the significance of a more agrarian way of life that revolved around tending to the land, growing what you ate and making what you needed. This kind of self-sufficiency was a useful shield, in many ways, from the venom of state-sponsored racial terrorism against Black people. Mama Geraldine didn’t go far in formal schooling, but she was a kind of professor who meticulously passed these lessons down to her children.
So, when I was introduced many years later to something called “Earth Day,” while it felt foreign in some ways, in other ways it seemed very familiar. Placing importance on our collective stewardship of and advocacy for the earth is timely, especially now.
There is no denying that our planet is out of balance — in more ways than one. We face new environmental challenges, with data centers draining resources and now causing heat islands. Black people suffer health challenges exacerbated by environmental racism, as seen in disproportionate asthma and heart disease rates, the Flint water crisis, Cancer Alley and beyond. We confront myriad moral and political challenges related to the mismanagement of our relationship with our home planet.
To borrow language from the biblical book of Romans chapter 8, “the whole of creation is groaning” — from war, poverty, climate change, unchecked technology and more. We are part of that groaning, but we can meet the new challenges with care, community and collective power.
To do so, I look to those who came before us: the Black women and men who have been living the spirit of Earth Day long before the holiday was created in 1970.
George Washington Carver, a scientist, researcher and Sunday school teacher, had an impact that went far beyond the peanuts that many of us learned about in school. Carver was a pioneering botanist, spiritualist and agricultural mastermind who stewarded the nutrients of soil through crop rotation. Through use of his Jesup Wagon, he created a “mobile school” and would meet with Black farmers in their fields sharing his knowledge and empowering them to break out of institutional cycles of debt and dependence.
Rev. Dr. Vernon Johns, a trailblazer in the civil rights movement born in Virginia on Earth Day, intertwined community empowerment and food justice throughout his work. He farmed and sold produce by his church and was a leader in the business cooperative Farm and City Enterprises, Inc., supporting farmers by connecting them directly with consumers.
Hazel Johnson is the mother of the environmental justice movement. She began as a community advocate in Chicago when she witnessed environmental racism in her own neighborhood, and later championed the movement on a global scale. Guided by her faith, she always focused on relieving Black communities from the adverse health effects of toxic environments.
Throughout history, leaders such as these have given us the blueprint for balanced living and environmental justice work. They showed us that we can help the Earth and each other simultaneously, and that it is imperative to do so. We’ve been conditioned to believe that Black people do not have a relationship with the land or aren’t concerned about the environment, but we must remember that we maintain a deep connection with Mother Earth that far preceded our centuries of enslavement in the Americas.
For our own survival and sustenance, we must rekindle our collective relationship with the land and feel the goodness of creation. It is as much a spiritual endeavor as it is a community effort; a way of being based on tradition, care and communal self-determination.
George Washington Carver once wrote, “I love to think of nature as unlimited broadcasting stations, through which God speaks to us every day, every hour and every moment of our lives, if we will only tune in and remain so.” I believe he was right. There is a quietude, a powerful sense of meaning and goodness, that can only be found by connecting with our environment and with our community.
I encourage all of us to remember that environmental justice exists beyond any one day; it is a matter for everyone and for always. I urge us to follow in the footsteps of our ancestors and elders. Make intentional decisions to align your life’s frequency with the earth. Follow the rhythms of nature. Recognize that so much of our sickness and suffering comes from misalignment with the heartbeat of our Mother Planet.
Our fate is intertwined with the condition of the earth. As the earth goes, so do we. Let’s do all we can – individually and collectively to ensure that this beautiful planet gifted us by God will flourish for us and for many generations yet unborn.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.
