Alabama’s Black Belt stretches in a strip 25 miles wide across the center of the state. Named for the rich soil that enabled cotton to flourish, the Black Belt was once Alabama’s most prosperous and politically powerful region. It held most of the state's enslaved people, and African Americans still comprise the majority of the Black Belt population today.
"New Stewards on Old Homesteads in Alabama" provides a contemporary look at Black Belt land and its stewards: the most recent chapter in a long history of transformation. Younger generations are now returning to family land in the Black Belt, often to find it reclaimed by wilderness. We learn how they strive to make a living from the land and the challenges faced in a rural food system. We consider opposing notions of agricultural life: one that inflicts trauma, and one that heals from it. Andrew Williams of the Deep South Food Alliance in Linden and Yawah Awolowo of Mahala Farms in Cuba are our guides.
This batch of Gravy is reported and produced by Jackie Clay, Executive Director at the Coleman Center for the Arts in rural Sumter County, AL; Matt Whitson, production audio mixer and video editor at Alabama Public Television in Birmingham, AL; and Emily Blejwas, Executive Director of the Alabama Folklife Association. The Southern Foodways Alliance is the organization behind the podcast.
What Is White Trash Cooking? (Gravy ep. 47)
Repast (Gravy Ep. 46)
Dancing the Shrimp Dry: How Chinese Immigrants Drove Louisiana Seafood (Gravy Ep. 45)
The Leftovers In A Coal Miner's Lunchbox (Gravy Ep. 44)
An Apple Quest (Gravy Ep. 43)
Schnitzel and the Saturn V (Gravy Ep. 42)
ENCORE: Dinner at the Patel Motel (Gravy Ep. 33)
Fish Camps: Fried Seafood and Family in a North Carolina Mill Town
A Seafood Phenomenon: the Wonder of Alabama Jubilees (Gravy Ep. 40)
The Middle East in Music City (Gravy Ep. 39)
What’s Growing in Mossville? (Gravy Ep. 38)
Halo Halo: Growing up “Mix Mix,” Filipino in the American South (Gravy Ep. 37)
The New Old Country Store (Gravy Ep. 36)
Wanting the Bourbon You Can’t Have (Gravy Ep. 35)
Jell-O Makes the Modern (Mountain) Woman (Gravy Ep. 34)
Dinner at the Patel Motel (Gravy Ep. 33)
Mexican-ish: How Arkansas Came to Love Cheese Dip (Gravy Ep. 32)
A Trailer, a Temple, a Feast: Making Laos in North Carolina (Gravy Ep. 31)
The Pull of Pollo: How the Chicken Industry Transformed One Arkansas Town (Gravy Ep. 30)
Hip Hop to Bibimbap: the Atlanta of Christiane Lauterbach (Gravy Ep. 11)
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