Episode 20: Rev. Heber Brown of The Black Church Food Security Network

Podcast

Dec 1

“The Black preachers coming out of the Civil War were very clear eyed about the priority of land for the Black community to help us move forward with our aspirations for freedom and self-determination…

“Black folk can’t go into any other space and enjoy the autonomy they do in the Black church… it’s a powerful incubator space. ”

From https://www.heberbrown.com/about and https://blackchurchfoodsecurity.net : Rev. Dr. Heber Brown, III is a Community Organizer, Social Entrepreneur, Base Builder, and Network Weaver and Senior Pastor of Pleasant Hope Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the Founding Director of Orita’s Cross Freedom School. Based on the Freedom Schools of the 1960's, Dr. Brown works to reconnect Black youth to their African heritage while providing them hands-on learning opportunities to spark their creative genius and build vocational skills. In 2015 he launched the Black Church Food Security Network a multi-state alliance of congregations working together to inspire health, wealth and power in the Black Community. The BCFSN accomplishes this by partnering with historically African American churches to establish gardens on church-owned land and cultivates partnerships with African American farmers to create a grassroots, community-led food system. Dr. Brown's dedication to service has been widely recognized. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Ella Baker Freedom Fighter Award and The Afro American Newspaper’s “25 Under 40 Emerging Black History Leaders” award. In 2018, Baltimore Magazine named him a Visionary of the City and the Baltimore City Office of Civil Rights presented him with their Food Justice Award. In 2019, he received the coveted Emerging Leaders Award from the Claneil Foundation and has presented and lectured at many institutions of higher learning including Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC), Drew Theological School, Wake Forest School of Divinity, and the Black Theological Leadership Institute at Princeton Theological Seminary.

The Black Church Food Security Network utilizes an asset-based approach in organizing and linking the vast resources of historically African American congregations in rural and urban communities to advancing food and land sovereignty. They are on a mission to organize the strength and focus the assets of the Black Church toward advancing health (physical and spiritual), economic opportunity and self-determination in the African American community.

To Donate or support the BCFSN: https://blackchurchfoodsecurity.net/donate/

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Episode #20 Notes

0:45 - What is the mission and vision of Black Church Food Security Network?

2:45 - How and where do you operate?

4:30 - How should we think about the role of the Black church being connected to the Black freedom struggle?

6:00 - How is food connected to the Black freedom struggle?

8:30 - What have you seen regarding food insecurity first hand, pre and during COVID?

10:30 - Who are the main stakeholders and beneficiaries of your work?

14:45 - Does your organization help with logistics and distribution? How does it operate?

22:30 - On dispossession and discrimination of Black farmers have faced since emancipation?