Urban Farm DB
Research catalogue
Database research record2025·United States (Newark)

“We Have Worked the Land for Centuries”: Diasporic Memory and Black Environmental Belonging in Urban Green Space

Kessie Alexandre

Transforming Anthropology

Urban Farm DB summary

This article traces Black environmental relations in the stewardship of community gardens and green spaces in Newark, New Jersey. It examines how Black Newarkers, with roots in the American South and Caribbean, contend with the legacy of plantations while framing land cultivation as a mode of recovery and resistance. The study highlights how these growers acknowledge the association between cultivation and captivity, yet use it to address present-day labor extractions and enact self-determination.