Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color have long recognized that vibrant foodways are central to community wellness. Food justice and food sovereignty work moves alongside and beyond models concerned with individual physical health outcomes; it is equally and necessarily concerned with collective/community health models, ecological justice, tribal sovereignty, and community self-determination. Join representatives from The Food Project and Pequoig Farm as they share a bit about their work in pursuit of thriving futures.

Established in 1991, The Food Project is a nationally-recognized non-profit organization that works at the intersections of food, youth, and community. The Food Project’s mission is to create a thoughtful and diverse community of youth and adults from diverse backgrounds who work together to build a sustainable food system. Each year, The Food Project hires 140 teens who work on 70 acres of urban and suburban farmland across eastern Massachusetts. Focused in Boston’s Dudley neighborhood and the City of Lynn, these youth grow 200,000 pounds of food and donate more than 180,000 servings of fresh produce to hunger relief organizations across eastern Massachusetts annually.

Pequoig Farm is a 181-acre farm located along a ridgetop in North Central Massachusetts on the West Branch of the Tully River. The land was returned to Nipmuc stewardship in early 2022 and is slated to have the deed fully transferred by the end of 2024. Under farm manager KeelyCurliss (Nipmuc), Pequoig Farm strives for a self-sufficient farm system that is rooted in visions of Nipmuc sovereignty; intergenerational work and mentorship of Nimpuc youth; and right relationship with both the biological and sociopolitical ecosystems that call these lands home. Currently, 12 acres of Pequoig are in pasture, 3 acres are being cultivated, and the rest is wooded. Each season culturally significant seeds and crops are grown such as cranberry beans, hassanamisco squash, white flint corn, Connecticut field pumpkins, sunchokes and more. Food is distributed primarily to tribal members free or through a pay-what-you-can model.

About The Rez & The Hood series:

This season, we are collaborating with Mary Amanda McNeil (she/her), Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University, to bring you “The Rez and The Hood,” a DS4SI Design Gym speaker series, that celebrates local practices of Black and Indigenous placekeeping, stewardship, and institution-building. Across four events, panelists from the Commonwealth will reflect upon their lives’ work while attending to broader thematic questions such as: What has happened to us spatially? How have we created life-affirming geographies in the midst of settler colonial and anti-Black dispossession and displacement? What are our visions for the future?

The places we call home have been spatially transformed by settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, and other forms of domination; this shapes the conditions of life and death for Black and Indigenous families, communities, and nations in the lands that are commonly referred to as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And yet, BIPOC political organizers, community members, and tribal citizens have fought against colonial, national, and local policies of dispossession and displacement for the past four centuries—insisting upon their responsibility to remain in place and critically shaping their environments in the process.

Register to join us and be a part of this rich dialogue.

About the Moderator:

Mary Amanda McNeil (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University. Her research, teaching, and public history work sit at the intersections of Black studies; Native American and Indigenous studies; social history; and geography, with especial attention to the Northeast. Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, McNeil is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and lives in Dorchester.

Black and Indigenous geographers such as Katherine McKittrick and Mishuana Goeman (Tonawanda Band of Seneca) have attended to the ways in which settler colonial and anti-Black regimes have sought to render Black and Indigenous peoples, communities, and nations “ungeographic” and “placeless,” as well as the ways in which geographically marginalized/colonized communities have responded through acts of “respatializing” and “re/mapping.” A key dimension of such resistant geographical practice has historically been institution-building. Join representatives from the North American Indian Center of Boston and the Royall House and Slave Quarters  in a moderated conversation about institution building, place-keeping, and Black and Indigenous futures in Boston. 

Established in 1969 as the Boston Indian Council, The North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB) is the oldest urban Indian center in Massachusetts. A hub of social and political activity for Boston’s  American Indian/Alaska Native and First Nations community in the 1970s, the Boston Indian Council’s  headquarters moved from Dorchester to their present Jamaica Plain location in 1974, and was reorganized as the North American Indian Center of Boston in 1991. Since then, NAICOB has provided a wide range of cultural, social, educational, and professional services to Native peoples in the Commonwealth, guided by their mission to “empower the Native American community with the goal of improving the quality of life of [all] Indigenous peoples” in Boston and beyond. 

Located in Medford, Massachusetts, The Royall House and Slave Quarters is one of the last remaining freestanding living quarters for enslaved people in the North. A portion of the former estate of the Royall family, the largest slaveholding family in 18th century Massachusetts, the house museum “explores the meanings of freedom and independence before, during, and since the American Revolution, in the context of a household of wealthy Loyalists and enslaved Africans.” The museum is open to the general public from June to October of every year, and offers programming for public school students and community members from Medford and the Greater Boston area year round.

About The Rez & The Hood series:

This season, we are collaborating with Mary Amanda McNeil (she/her), Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University, to bring you “The Rez and The Hood,” a DS4SI Design Gym speaker series, that celebrates local practices of Black and Indigenous placekeeping, stewardship, and institution-building. Across four events, panelists from the Commonwealth will reflect upon their lives’ work while attending to broader thematic questions such as: What has happened to us spatially? How have we created life-affirming geographies in the midst of settler colonial and anti-Black dispossession and displacement? What are our visions for the future?

The places we call home have been spatially transformed by settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, and other forms of domination; this shapes the conditions of life and death for Black and Indigenous families, communities, and nations in the lands that are commonly referred to as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And yet, BIPOC political organizers, community members, and tribal citizens have fought against colonial, national, and local policies of dispossession and displacement for the past four centuries—insisting upon their responsibility to remain in place and critically shaping their environments in the process.

Register to join us and be a part of this rich dialogue.

About the Moderator:

Mary Amanda McNeil (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University. Her research, teaching, and public history work sit at the intersections of Black studies; Native American and Indigenous studies; social history; and geography, with especial attention to the Northeast. Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, McNeil is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and lives in Dorchester.