40 Acres Project

40 Acres Project Using food as an effort for community revitalization through purchasing farmland for farm to table resources, preserving Black culture, foodways, and legacy.

Happy Birthday to Chef Leah Chase. Although she is with the ancestors her food and work still impacts us today. A James ...
01/06/2026

Happy Birthday to Chef Leah Chase.

Although she is with the ancestors her food and work still impacts us today.

A James Beard award-winning chef and an inspiration for a Disney princess, the late Leah Chase spent seven decades stirring, chopping, spooning, basting and, in general, creating countless delicious meals in her establishment, the famed Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in the Treme-Lafitte neighborhood.

Chef Chase first began cooking in 1946. Although she passed in 2019, her restaurant continues her traditions into the present day, offering her informal lunch buffet and more formal dinner of classic New Orleans cuisine such as Shrimp Clemenceau, red beans and Chicken Creole.

Frequently called the “Queen of Creole Cuisine,” Chef Chase became the inspiration for Princess Tiana in Disney’s animated 2009 classic The Princess and the Frog. Her honors have been many: Chef Chase received the 2016 James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award, the Lafcadio Hearn Hall of Honor at Nicholls State University’s John Folse Culinary Institute, the Candace Award, the Freedom Foundation Award, the NAACP Human Understanding and A.P. Tureaud Awards, the Times-Picayune Loving Cup and the Weiss Award from The National Conference of Christians and Jews- to name a few. In 2025, the Chase family was awarded a James Beard America’s Classics: South Award. She is the author of the Dooky Chase Cookbook.



Today, we honor the indomitable Fannie Lou Hamer.Last year on this day, former President Biden posthumously awarded her ...
01/05/2026

Today, we honor the indomitable Fannie Lou Hamer.

Last year on this day, former President Biden posthumously awarded her the Medal of Freedom, recognizing her extraordinary contributions to justice, equality, and the enduring fight for liberation.

A beacon of hope and justice, Hamer dedicated her life to the fight for civil rights, voting rights, and equity. Beyond her fearless advocacy for voting rights through the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, she also championed economic empowerment for Black communities.

Through her Freedom Farm Cooperative, Hamer tackled food insecurity and systemic poverty by helping Black farmers regain access to land, grow their own food, and build community wealth. Her innovative pig banking program provided livestock to struggling families, creating sustainable resources for food and income. These efforts were a revolutionary model of self-sufficiency and collective care, empowering marginalized communities to thrive in the face of oppression.

Let us carry forward her legacy in every field tilled, every ballot cast, and every step toward justice.

On the night of December 31, 1862, enslaved and free African Americans gathered, many in secret, to ring in the new year...
12/31/2025

On the night of December 31, 1862, enslaved and free African Americans gathered, many in secret, to ring in the new year and await news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. Just a few months earlier, on September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the executive order that declared enslaved people in the rebelling Confederate States legally free. However, the decree would not take effect until the clock struck midnight at the start of the new year. The occasion, known as Watch Night or “Freedom’s Eve,” marks when African Americans across the country watched and waited for the news of freedom. Today, Watch Night is an annual New Year’s Eve tradition that includes the memory of slavery and freedom, reflections on faith, and celebration of community and strength.

Source: nmaahc

Happy Kwanzaa.May these days call us back to unity, self-determination, collective work, and responsibility.May we honor...
12/27/2025

Happy Kwanzaa.
May these days call us back to unity, self-determination, collective work, and responsibility.
May we honor our ancestors not just in word, but in action by building, protecting, and sustaining our communities with intention.
Culture is resistance. Care is power. The work continues.

Sending condolences to Betty Reid Soskin family and community at this time. This morning on the Winter Solstice, our mot...
12/21/2025

Sending condolences to Betty Reid Soskin family and community at this time.

This morning on the Winter Solstice, our mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, Betty Reid Soskin, passed away peacefully at her home in Richmond, CA at 104 years old. She was attended by family. She led a fully packed life and was ready to leave.

We understand the public nature of Betty’s life, however we ask that you please respect the family’s privacy at this time. There will be a public memorial at a time and place to be announced.

In lieu of flowers we suggest two ways that you can express your love and respect for Betty. You might send donations to Betty Reid Soskin Middle School (link to follow) and to support the finishing of her film, “Sign My Name To Freedom”.
https://signmynametofreedom.allyrafundraising.com

There will be more information to follow soon.

Thank you all for your love and respect for Betty!

We are so excited to announce Adrian is the new Executive Director of .heritage 🔁 .heritage Muloma Heritage Center is pr...
12/19/2025

We are so excited to announce Adrian is the new Executive Director of .heritage

🔁 .heritage Muloma Heritage Center is proud to announce Adrian Lipscombe as our new Interim Executive Director.

In this role, Adrian will lead the vision, strategy, and development of Muloma as a place-based cultural and agricultural center rooted on Saint Helena Island. Her work centers the preservation and advancement of African Atlantic foodways, land stewardship, and community knowledge, weaving together food, land, architecture, and storytelling.

Adrian will oversee Muloma’s organizational strategy, fundraising, partnerships, and program development, working across community, philanthropy, and policy to build sustainable models grounded in heritage, equity, and care. At the heart of her leadership is a deep commitment to farmers, cooks, elders, and culture-bearers, and to using food as a vehicle for intergenerational learning, community power, and long-term resilience.

We’re honored to have Adrian stewarding Muloma forward and excited for the future taking shape under her leadership. Please join us in congratulating her!

On this day, we remember that change is often made in the smallest moments.A single decision, a quiet act of courage, or...
12/02/2025

On this day, we remember that change is often made in the smallest moments.
A single decision, a quiet act of courage, or choosing to show up for someone else can shift the world in ways we may never fully see. Today is a reminder that our actions big or small carry weight.

Keep choosing kindness.
Keep choosing justice.
Keep choosing to make a difference, even in the everyday.

We have been celebrating with .heritage all week on their ground breaking in SC. We’re one week away from Giving Tues...
11/25/2025

We have been celebrating with .heritage all week on their ground breaking in SC.

We’re one week away from Giving Tuesday! ⏰
Muloma’s mission—bridging the African Atlantic through food, land, and culture—is only possible through community support.
Our theme is ‘We Are Together’, a reflection of every person who showed up at our Friendsgiving Bonfire, shared space with us, and believed in Muloma’s vision.
Stay tuned for how you can join us in this next chapter! 🌱

Rest in Peace, Viola Fletcher.The oldest known survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.A living testimony who spent her...
11/25/2025

Rest in Peace, Viola Fletcher.
The oldest known survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
A living testimony who spent her entire life insisting that this country remember what it tried to bury.

Mother Fletcher lived 110 years with grace, clarity, and fire. She carried history in her bones, and still chose hope. She taught us that memory is a form of resistance, that telling the truth is an act of love, and that justice takes generations of work.

We have lost a witness, a storyteller, and a keeper of our collective pain and possibility. But we also inherit her charge: to never look away.
To fight for the communities that were stolen.
To honor our elders while they’re still here.
To build a world worthy of their survival.

May Mother Fletcher rest in power.
May her memory guide us.
May we keep doing the work she called us to do.

This is devastating news. This will also affect the Farm Bill if this holds. Food banks will become strain. Dignity erod...
11/08/2025

This is devastating news. This will also affect the Farm Bill if this holds.

Food banks will become strain. Dignity erodes.

Everyone deserves to eat. Not just the lucky. Not just the wealthy. All of us.

We feed each other because our government refuses to. But we should never have been put in this position.

No one should ever eat last.

The Farmers’ Almanac is ending after more than 200 years. (The Old Farmer’s Almanac is still in print. )Since 1818, farm...
11/07/2025

The Farmers’ Almanac is ending after more than 200 years. (The Old Farmer’s Almanac is still in print. )

Since 1818, farmers, gardeners, and cooks have opened those pages to understand the seasons when to plant, when to harvest, when frost might come, how to read the sky.
It wasn’t just a book. It was a guide, a teacher, a companion to the land and farmers.

For generations, the Almanac helped farmers grow our food with intention and rhythm. Long before satellites and apps, this country trusted observation sun patterns, soil memory, folklore, wisdom passed down from generations from generations.

The Almanac held those stories.

So when we say its final edition is coming, this isn’t just an ending.
It’s a signal.

We know we are losing farmers who know how to read the earth. The average age of farmers is slowly creeping up. There is less and less generations taking over farms and the knowledge is slowly disappearing.

We are losing the relationship between land and table.
We are losing the slow knowledge that feeds us.

As a chef, I feel this deeply. My food begins with the hands that plant seeds, tend fields, and harvest with understanding. Without them, without their knowledge and stories, our plates go empty of truth, culture, and season.

The end of the Almanac is not about nostalgia.
It is a warning.

Honor farmers. Honor soil. Honor seasons. Talk and learn from to them. Inspire to know more, support the younger generations that want to get into this business.

The future of our food depends on remembering how to listen to the land.

Source: https://www.farmersalmanac.com/end-of-an-era-farmers-almanac-announces-final-publication

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La Crosse, WI
78680

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