Ft. Lincoln + 2024 UJ Reflections

As the growing season comes to a close, so does Ujima Jams 2024.

From June until now, I haven’t written much about the work we’ve been doing, but I’ve spent hours learning alongside Black farmers and lifelong learners. This year was about saying less and showing up more—and I feel proud to have achieved that goal.

Now, as I reflect on my first year coordinating Ujima Jams, I find myself thinking about the questions Audre Lorde asked in Sister Outsider:

“What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you sicken and die of them, still in silence?”

This blog is a reflective space to celebrate collective work and responsibility.
It's about honoring the simple, but necessary moments of community building. 
It's about sharing the words, once they arrive.
….

Ujima Jams is a space for the meantime in-between time. 
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It’s an invitation to join the OurSpace Orbit—a space where we help each other out, learn together, and work on farms. So many beautiful souls have accepted Ujima Jam invitations this year. Throughout the season, we’ve supported eight Black small-scale farmers and worked together for nine months, completing a variety of on-farm tasks: preparing beds, transplanting, composting, pest management, weeding, and harvesting produce.

Our last Ujima Jam of the season took place at Ft. Lincoln Community Garden. The Howard University Water Environment Association, along with other community members, supported Farmer Michele’s Senior Insecurity Project. This project was born in 2023 when Farmer Michele noticed two senior housing buildings along Bladensburg Road in Northeast DC. Her first thought was, “How can I serve these seniors by delivering fresh produce from A Heart 4 People Farm in Upper Marlboro?”

Farmer Michele applied for grant funding and turned the land at the Theodore Hagans Cultural Center into a farm that now serves the senior community at Ft. Lincoln. With this funding, Phase 1 of the project was completed: six raised beds, with plans for more.

On November 16th, we came together to clear beds, overwinter peppers, transplant kale, harvest sweet potatoes, and clean around the greenhouse. We were grateful to have community members who have been consistent throughout the season show up and contribute. We were also blessed to have Howard University students join in and support Farmer Michele's on-farm efforts.

Two community elders came forward to speak life into our efforts and bless the food we planted. We are blessed with abundance—for many years and many moons to come.

Ujima Jams like this reminds us that we are always better when we come together. There are many more goals to accomplish in 2025, but I’m thankful to have found the words to describe some of our actions in 2024.
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As we move into the next season, we carry with us Audre Lorde’s wisdom: “We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired.” Audre Lorde, we are learning to honor both. It makes us more human.

More willing to create worlds for Earthseeds. 

Thank you, Creator for the breath.
Thank you, Creator for Ujima Jams.
We move forward with more to share, more to do, and more to become.

And so it is
And so it is

Photo Credit: MJ