Dr. Michelle Johnson and #C3TalkToMe Media presents the stories of Black women with farming roots in Kalamazoo, Cass, and Van Buren Counties. Raising Hay digs through layers of pride and the challenges of Black farmers and rural and urban residents’ agricultural enterprises. The episodes also explore the lives of Black women artists as they reveal the links between creativity, identity, land, farming and legacy. Moments pieced together before and during the pandemic - and linked to broad-based Black activism in the United States - reveal the essential nature of Black people’s relationships with the land. The series adds (Add the title for the Water podcast), a Seth Bernard (check spelling) interview with Dr. Michelle S. Johnson on the eve of the 2017 (?) election. Johnson discusses her environmental roots in Saginaw and the intersection of industry, toxicity, development and stewardship.

The Lecture
Land Legacy: A Black Kalamazoo Land and Ethic will contextualize the 5 podcasts, including my interview from the State of Water. The conversation will articulate a distinctive environmental perspective at the intersection of place, ancestry, food and cultural insistence.