Africulture : How the Principles, Practices, Plants, and People of African Descent Have Shaped American Agriculture

"Africulture is a gift and inspiration."—Michael W. Twitty, author of the James Beard Foundation Award-winning The Cooking Gene

A bold, timely history illuminating the essential contributions to U.S. agriculture arising from the expertise and innovations of Black men and women.

In Africulture, fifth-generation family farmer Michael Carter, Jr. has blended an eclectic brew of history, culture, African-centered perspectives, and African American farm realities. Throughout, he includes inspiring stories of innovators as well as sobering facts tracking the severe decline in the number of Black farmers in the United States over the last century. Descriptions of tropical crops that Carter grows, from jute to Nigerian spinach, enliven the text, as do anecdotes from his compelling family history and profiles of contemporary Black farmers and activists. Drawing on the lifecycle of a plant as a metaphor for both individual growth and the larger story of African American farming, Carter evokes the relationship between soil health (metaphorically, society and community) and plant health (i.e., the ability of Black farmers and families to thrive).

Africulture also includes Carter’s heartfelt reflections on the cycles of progress and backsliding—what he calls “blacklash”—that are an inescapable part of the history of Black people in the United States, in agriculture and beyond. In the present moment, when the civil rights gains and progress toward economic parity for Black Americans of the past fifty years may be slipping away, Carter offers the possibility of a better future through several foundational principles of Africulture.

Destined to surprise, challenge, and enrich, Africulture lays bare the undeniable revelation that without African expertise and innovation, American agriculture—and America itself—would not exist.

“The ancestors are undoubtedly shaking their tambourines in celebration of Africulture...[it] provides a blueprint for the blossoming of an agriculture rooted in cultural memory, ecological care, and mutual thriving.”—Leah Penniman, cofounder, Soul Fire Farm; author of Farming While Black