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Indybay Feature

Farm to Fork Friday, A Taste of Africa

by Khubaka, Michael Harris (Blackagriculture [at] yahoo.com)
Farm to Fork Friday is an Agritourism part of the California Pan African Heritage Trail charged with identifying, documenting and preserving the contributions by people of Pan African Ancestry with regional food systems in the State of California.
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Our Farm to Fork Friday, A Taste of Africa activities includes sharing the historical Pan African connections of our Stockton - Asaba Sister City to today's local food systems.

The founder of the African Baptist Church of Stockton final resting place is found within Block 27-Stockton Rural Cemetery along with many of the earliest pioneers of Pan African ancestry, both those formally born enslaved and free.

Early California Pioneers of Pan African Heritage endured separate and unequal treatment by law, for many, many generations.

Many current residents remember laboring in difficult Agriculture conditions and most have no intention of allowing their children to explore plentiful Agriculture jobs and lucrative careers.

The City of Stockton, California, is once again being considered to be designated an 2018 All-American City and putting a fresh face on Food and Agriculture public policy.

Our Stockton -Asaba Sister City is poised to help share our amazing connected shared historical legacy through our early founding mother's and father's of Pan African ancestry with the world.

Our Farm to Fork Friday, A Taste of Africa shares how food connects the distant past to a mutually beneficial future, let the church say, Amen.

Our broader proposed Agritourism California Pan African Heritage Trail is charged with identifying, documenting and preserving the contributions by people of African Ancestry while connecting with regional food systems in the State of California.

The historical meaning and knowledge of California Slavery and Jim Crow has changed over time yet, Etymology studies of the origin of words and how historical meanings change over time, is food for thought.

The Germanic word frei, thought to mean outside of the fundal system, “beloved, friend, to love, clear of obstruction; sense of unrestrained movement” has a very different historical context from the unspoken and taboo conversation about “Chattel Slavery in the State of California.”

What is freedom to someone not considered a human being?

Chattel slavery called property, not considered an “enslaved human being” thus this salient distinction remains the unspoken value and belief in question today.

In 1803, Reverend Jeremiah King was reportedly born in the low country of Georgia and his amazing life ended July 1, 1883 and his body was laid to rest within Block 27~Stockton Rural Cemetery.

Georgia was originally claimed as part of the Spanish Mission System, to include the costal Port of Savannah, GA aligned with St. Augustine, FL and the southern ports of Mobile, AL and New Orleans, LA with New Spain's headquarters now in Havana, Cuba.

The economic bonanza of “free agriculture labor” “enslaved human beings” from the West Coast of West Africa, today’s Gambia, Senegal and Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria and others utilized specialized regional agriculture skills to produce the highly profitable commodities of “indigo and rice” along the low county of Georgia and the Carolinas, prior to the invention of the cotton gin and King Cotton.

The unique West African foods and agricultural production methods helped facilitate retention of ancient African cultural traditions that we see in our profound historical legacy and contributions to the State of California.

By 1849, Jeremiah King and his wife are given freedom papers, gold and passage to migrate from bowels of “chattel slavery in the deep south” to join the California Gold Rush at Monterey, California.

Jeremiah King struck it rich in the southern gold mining district and settled in San Joaquin County by purchasing over 100 acres of land near today's City of Lathrop and a full square block in the Historic Stockton Waterfront District.

It is recorded that “often” Rev. Jeremiah King and his wife would travel 40 miles to Sacramento to worship in the basement of the Chinese Baptist Church, and birthed today's Shiloh Baptist Church.

Beginning September 1854 the African Baptist Church of Stockton was organized and began hosting weekly Church services.

In 1859, Rev. King successfully petitioned the founding father of the City of Stockton, Captain Weber, for church property on W.Washington St., while making plans to relocate the purchased church building from Rev. James Woods of the Presbyterian Church of Stockton. A historical marker marks the general location today.

During the US Civil War, Rev. Jeremiah King successfully petitioned the Trustees of Stockton Rural Cemetery to establish Block 27, “a colored section” as the final resting place for people of Pan African ancestry.

Today, the amazing historical contributions by people of Pan African ancestry remains an open secret, hidden with the grave markers within Block 27 ~ Stockton Rural Cemetery.

Our ongoing task to remove separate and unequal care, equity and equal opportunity seen at Block 27-Stockton Rural Cemetery while researching, documenting and preserving the authentic Pan African Heritage is a challenge.

Farm to Fork Friday - A Taste of Africa helps will build a brighter future for the City of Stockton, California, connecting our Pan African Heritage while strengthening the connection to Asaba, Delta State, Nigeria.

We remember and celebrate Rev. Jeremiah King and began identifying, documenting and preserving the community contributions of those early Pan African Pioneers interred within Block 27-Stockton Rural Cemetery.

Many of our friends in West Africa are delighted to find distant relatives, here in Stockton, California and throughout San Joaquin County sharing Egusi Soup and Pounded Yam.
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