Generations of a Black family’s stewardship, sovereignty, and love

It is early in the planting season for Elister Charleston and his family. And, as he has come to know in his eighty years of farming, before the faithful sun breaks into the sky, before he gets himself cleaned up and dresses in his blue jeans, shirt and cap, before he makes his black coffee and has a little breakfast, before he heads to his farm and surveys the land, before he kneels down in the field and feels the dark gray sand between his weathered hands, he humbly asks The Lord to go through with me during the day, and help me know what to plant.

Then, careful not to stir the sleep of his wife, Hattie Mae, Elister, 87, he gets in his pickup truck and drives to his farm, the Charleston Farm. One family, four generations of toiling, planting, harvesting, and expanding. Of praying through yields and losses, listening, and believing. Of family, faith, and love.

The planting season tends to run from early spring, after the Easter Snap when the soil warms and the danger of frost has passed, to early in the summer. One sunny and warm day in early April, Elister spent his day at the farm planting his seeds and bulbs. His second eldest son Edmond goes about the same business. His granddaughter, Edmond’s daughter, Janie, is another hand.

The twenty-four-and-a-half acre family farm is located in the community of Gallion, Ala., nestled within the southern Black Belt, which holds layered significance. The region is a 300-mile crescent of dark, rich, highly fertile prairie soil that stretches across central Alabama and northeast Mississippi. In its past, thousands of enslaved African Americans cleared and worked its fields on colonized land, their brutal labor on cotton plantations fueling the local and state economy.

Farming has long been the foundation of the family, starting with Elister’s father and his son’s namesake, Edmond, who toiled as a sharecropper. After his father died, Elister bought some 46 years ago his first patch of farm land. 

He and his family are conscious of their interdependence with the earth. They see the land as divine. They know farming is their purpose within generational love, generational sovereignty, and stewardship over the soil. In that, the farm is their peace, pride, and joy. They plant and grow bounties of fresh produce such as collard greens, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, watermelon, squash … — food that is organic, homegrown, nurtured, prayed over, and loved. The farm is also a community haven. The family hosts community health programs, and this summer is offering field tours and lessons, including storytime under the oak tree with Elister, affectionately known to many as Granddaddy. The farm is part of the Black story in oneness with the land, and what land ownership and food sovereignty means through time and in time. Despite what all goes on in the material world, the farm not only survives – but thrives – through faith.

“It was rooted and grounded in me as I was raised,” Elister said early one evening, his slight build sitting in a chair under the water oak with his son Edmond and granddaughter, Janie. All three work the farm some six days a week. Sundays are to gather and praise in church. Elister leaned back as he explained. A worn cap shielded his soft gray eyes from the sun. He has a silver beard, an easy smile, and a warm lilt to his voice. “And it got in my bloodstream,” he said, “and I just couldn’t get rid of it ‘cause I loved how the dirt smell when you break it up. It got a different scent to it from any other scent you ever smelled. Fresh. Fresh, and full of life, and full of inspiration. It was just everything. I looked at about the ground was life. The grass grows up out the ground. You don’t have to plant it, it just come up. Trees. Everything. Come up looking up. Because everything it needed was up. Was nothing down but the ground. And that was the seed. And so we learned how to deal with the seed from above.”

THE PRAYER

One morning, when Elister was seven years old, standing in the field, looking toward the heavens, he prayed a prayer, asked the Lord, “Let me be recognized as a farmer.” 

His earnest plea was forever tied to his own father. 

Elister was born in the spring of 1939, at home, which was a small old cabin, in a place called The Corner in Sumter County. He was delivered by a midwife, the youngest of fifteen children in his family, to his daddy Edmond, a farmer, and his mama Rosie, a homemaker. In the county, as much of America, life was stiflingly segregated by race. Racism entrenched its interlocking social, economic, and political systems. Black residents were excluded from voting and political power. Schools for Black children were underfunded. Black citizens were relegated to separate restrooms, restaurants, parks, and myriad public spaces. Black patients were routinely denied care at hospitals. Many Black families faced extreme economic hardship and limitations in job opportunities.

His parents, who have since joined the ancestors, were part of a long African history of making a way out of no way.

“My mama could take one little old chicken,” Elister recalled. “Take one little old chicken and she could divide that chicken up to them fifteen children. But now she didn’t have the fifteen. She had eleven. But my daddy had four extra. And so my mama could divide that chicken up, and everybody could get a taste of that chicken. And something she could put it in called a broth. It come in a broth. And she could take one of them little shallowed onions and cut it up and put it in there. And you never would sop the bread. You just bump it on each side to keep it held up until you eat up all your bread,” he said and then chuckled, bringing laughter to Edmond and Janie, their likenesses imprinted on each other.

His father worked in the fields, under the sweltering sun, with him watching, learning.

“My daddy was farming,” said Elister, who first started farming the year he made that prayer. “He never was recognized. He never made anything out of his farm. He always come out in the hole. And he never made no money out the farming. He made plenty of cotton, corn, peanuts, sweet potatahs, okra, watermelon. He always come out in the hole, but he had to live on what he growed, but he didn’t get no money. We got one pair of shoes. Oh, yeah. Two pair of overalls and a shirt and a jumper. And that’s all we had, them Brogan shoes. And so the Lord had looked over the program and saw fit to give me a suit. Now I can wear a suit now when I want what I want.”

Elister recalled a time. It was in October 1956. That season his daddy made 43 bales of cotton, roughly 10 tons of harvest. He had borrowed 90 dollars to grow the crop. “And when the settlement come up the first week in October, man told my daddy if he had of made one more bale, he’d a paid out. And he let my daddy have 90 dollars. He let him have 30 dollars in March, 30 dollars in April, and 30 dollars in May. And 43 bales of cotton didn’t pay 90 dollars. The cotton was selling at that time, 60 dollars a bale for seeds–just the seeding out the cotton. And then the cotton was selling like 300 hundred dollars to 400 and 500 hundred dollars a bale.”

“I looked at it later on,” Elister continued. “He wasn’t going to pay us all. One bale would have paid everything and had money left. One bale would have paid everything. Two bales of seed would have paid over what my daddy owed,” he noted, his mind continuing to make the calculations. “And he took all that cotton. Seeds and the cotton.”

“The feeling that I get, the gut feeling that I get it,” Janie considered, sitting next to Elister, “it would have never been enough. It would have never been enough.”

“No,” Elister said plainly in agreement.

“Regardless of how much they had,” Janie added.

His prayer, that he prayed so long ago, about being a good farmer, was also for his father.

“And so,” said Elister, “he just wound up working for nothing, making the man rich, and he still didn’t do nothing with it but died. He worked my daddy to death, he died too, and then my daddy died at 57 years old. He didn’t get to enjoy none of his labor. He died at 57. My mama died at 56. So he left us kind of on his own. He was young when they died.”

The first seed Elister planted was at age seven. It was a watermelon seed. He grew it big and sweet. His father, he said with a laugh, had wondered how he did it.

From this father, and coming down through the years, he learned keys on how to break up the land, and what to plant, when to plant, how to plant, what season to plant this in, what season to plant that in. 

Moon: 

He always plants with the moon.

“He used to wait until the moon get right,” Elister said of his daddy. And just like him, he waits for a young moon to plant.

He explained: “The first quarter puts on a whole lot of fruit on your vine. And the second quarter puts on a heap too, but it doesn’t put on as much as the first quarter.” The later quarters put on less and less. That first moon is for his peas, okra, squash, butter beans, turnips, rutabagas, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and other root vegetables. He plants his root crops on dark nights, after the moon wanes away. If he somehow misses a plant, he will wait until the next quarter for the next new moon. “And that’s the way we do it,” he noted. Eighty years and counting.

Wind:

“I don’t plant nothing when the wind in the East, because it don’t do good. Stuff don’t grow right when the wind in the East,” he said. Not anything with a bloom. This goes back to the Old Testament, to the book of Exodus, to Pharaoh’s plague. “And so you want to plant when the wind is in the southwest,” he said. Edmond and Janie nodded in agreement. “Even your east wind,” said Edmond, “if it’s in the summertime and the wind come out of the east, it’s going to automatically be cold.”

Rain:

He needs three rains to make a crop. “You got to have a upper rain, and then you need a growing rain, and then you need a filling out rain,” he outlined. “You need three rains. One to bring it up, one to grow it, and one to fill it out.” 

Sun:

“I wait till that time till the sun coming out of the west, southwest,” he said. He learned to plant along about the middle of March. “I try to get a lot of my stuff in the ground,” he said.

His school was in the fields. Black boys back then didn’t ever hardly get to go to the school for formal education. They were deemed to not needing to learn anything but how to work. “That what the white man told my daddy,” said Elister, “and he kind of swallowed that.” When Elister was age 12, he worked for a man, riding a horse, herding cattle. “And he paid me 48 cents a day, from sun up to sundown. And he took a dime of that for dinner,” usually peas, okra, and a bit of fried chicken, up at the bossman house. “So I got 38 cents. I worked for that 38 cent for a year or two and then I left there. Then I got another job, dollar and a half a day. Then two dollars a day…” 

Looking back, Elister said, considering his early days: “That 48 cents let me know how far I had come, and where I’m at now.”

He always farmed, helping his daddy until he died. Elister was then around fifteen years old.

As a young man, he traveled from place to place, farming. “I did a lot of travel around helping people to understand what farming is all about,” he said. “And it made a lot of difference when you plant right.” In his study at home, he has certificates from farming throughout the country, in places such as Oklahoma, the Mississippi Delta, and California. He got married, had five children, later divorced, and married again. 

In 1980, he joined the Federation of the Southern Cooperative, where he conducted policy work on land resources. He worked and saved, worked and saved. In 1982, he bought a few acres of the land. And then when people sold, he bought more. In 1996, he was named the number one farmer in Alabama by the cooperative. Today, the Charleston Farm spans twenty-four and a half acres, and is revered throughout the state.

He retired as pastor of Friendship Baptist Church last year, after 50 years, baptizing, marrying, eulogizing, and guiding his community. But farming is in his soul. “I feed them two ways. Physically and spiritually.” he said.

He is a seasoned and cherished farmer, the prayer he prayed as a boy answered, through time, seasons, rotations, reverence, stewardship – love. 

THE FARM

Off of County Road 44, or Highway 69, down Bunchville Road, then a turn on a white gravel road, there is a wood sign that reads in black iron letters: THE CHARLESTON FARM. Ease through the stop sign, and there is a big pond. Past the pond is the front of the barn, which also houses Janie’s office, where she sees patients as community members. Behind the barn is a walnut grove, and black walnut trees. After a left is a wide road that goes through the woods that opens into a green expanse. There are towering oak trees on the right and the left. Oak trees, popular trees, and varieties of trees throughout. Out to the field area, there are onions. Big red onions, white onions, yellow onions. There is squash. Yellow, crooked neck squash, about six, seven inches high. There is corn, stalks about a foot high. There are snap beans, coming up. Okra, coming up. Zucchini squash, coming up. Bell peppers, cayenne peppers, jalapeno peppers, banana peppers. Red iced potatoes. Cabbage. Tomatoes. There are white butter beans, up big. There are speckled butterbeans. There are watermelons, cantaloupes, honeydew melons. There are purple top turnips, coming in real good. White egg turnips. There is the peach tree, heavy with peaches. There are Georgia collards coming up. Cabbage collards. Cushaw….

Coming out of winter, the ground had been resting.

About a quarter mile away, one morning in planting season, Edmond, age 66, named after his father’s father, sat at home, in his recliner in front of the television, watching the news of the world. He wondered how the weather was going to be and what he would be able to plant this day. He then asks God, in the name of Jesus: “To let your Holy Spirit lead me, guide me, direct me in what you want me to do today on this farm.” And then he waits.

Edmond walks through the field just about every other day, seeing what happened through the night, including any deer tracks. One morning, he gets an urge to see about the watermelon, see the green has grown rich, or if they are trying to turn yellow. “Looking good,” he tells the burgeoning fruits. He checks on his banana peppers. “Okay, girl, you putting on pretty good. Thank you, sweetheart.” He walks down and checks on his onions. “Y’all better come on here,” he tells the smaller ones, “the other onions about to get y’all.” He eyes the zucchini. “Come on, come on. Y’all ain’t jumping. Y’all need to be jumping. Come on now. Because I’m thinking about getting butter to put on some of y’all. So come on here. You know what I’m saying?”

Like his father, Edmond started farming as a boy, when he was age 12. He would watch his daddy in the field, and did what he was told to do for the plant, like chopping out the grass. His first planting on his own was honeydew melons, still his favorite fruit.

He had a small patch of dirt at the edge of the yard. One day, he declared he was going to plant some honeydew melon. He broke up the land and made his rows. His daddy, Elister, came over. He told him but the moon ain’t right. He looked up at his daddy and handily replied I ain’t planting on the moon. I am planting in the ground. Alright. Go ahead, he told him. His daddy told him he might make one or two honeydew melons about the size of a chicken egg. The vines would grow big, and bloom pretty, but the next morning, the blooms would fall off. His daddy told him to wait about a week after the next, and the moon would be right. 

But he couldn’t wait. 

Sure enough.

Looking back at that time, Edmond said: “So I failed to wait. When you fail to wait, you always make a mistake when you fail to wait.” He learned within that moment to accept the advice of his father, and in turn of his father’s father, who had been farming long before he was born into the world. “So you learn from trial and error, from making mistakes. You got to go through trial and error. You’re going to make a lot of mistakes before you start to learning what and how to do stuff. And if you don’t know how to do it, as the old lady said ‘you better ask somebody,” he jested.

Farming is also his calling. “I got to put a seed in the ground. I want to see something grow,” he said.

The farm has also held family moments. Elister’s daughters, Dominique and Monique, were married on the farm in a double wedding. There have been birthday parties and Easter egg hunts. The grandkids, including Janie and her husband’s two children, play and swing on vines. This planting season, Edmond turned an old beaver stick, held in one hand with a chainsaw in the other, into a baseball bat, and wiggled at an imaginary mound with his grandkids. The other day, Elister broke up a beaver dam. There are winding walks together, father and son, father and daughter, grandfather and granddaughter, great-grands, where laughs and words of love come easy. 

On the farm, Janie, a registered dietitian, provides medical nutrition therapy services for residents in the community and beyond through her private practice, Bite and Bloom Collective. 

Janie is the only dietitian within several neighboring counties in Alabama, a region she defines as a food swamp for the plethora of fast food restaurants. It is also where chronic disease runs rampant. 

She is also one of the few Black registered dietitians, among the 2.6 percent of them, in the country.

The people in the rural communities of the Black Belt, Janie explained one afternoon, have at least three chronic conditions at the same time: heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes.  

Bite is the medical nutrition therapy portion, where in her office in the barn or under the water oak, she offers an extension of the doctor’s visit. She talks with patients, many of whom remember her as a child skipping throughout the farm, about their health. One of the common ailments in the community is high blood pressure. Once Janie has made an assessment, she and her patient then get up, walk a few steps, and pick a prescription of fresh vegetables. It is food as medicine. 

“If they can just eat one vegetable that we grow a week, it would make me happy,” said Janie, who earned two degrees in public health—her master’s degree and her doctorate. “If they had a sweet potato every Wednesday, it would make me happy because at least they’re tasting a real sweet potato, and they can eat it without the heaviness.” She explained that navigating food can be a challenge. “And you eat several times a day, right?,” she said. “Think about you have all these chronic diseases, you have diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity. Every time you get hungry, it makes you nervous because now you got to find something to eat. ‘What can I eat that’s good for me?’ That’s not sitting at the top of my brain stressing me out. And then you start limiting yourself.”

Janie also supports her patients in planning for moments, like birthday cake or game day pizza. Some of her patients will not eat anything at all in advance of such events. That is not the way, she tells them. Janie teaches them how to be mindful. She currently has five patients. Her waiting list is long. She also works as a nutrition program director for the city school system.

Janie recalled one of her patients last year whose blood pressure ran in the 160s for years. Janie prescribed her sweet potatoes. They would then go out into the field as part of the visit and pick them. Janie also instructed her patient how to cook them, careful of the sugar and butter. The two met three times in six months. Her patient’s pressure now rests in the 120s, within normal range. 

“And you know what that tells me?,” said Janie. “There’s nothing wrong with us. We just need time. We just need time.” 

She started “Let’s Chat at the Farm”, in the fall of 2024, a community health initiative offering nutrition education directly on the farm.

Bloom, the farm portion, will begin next spring, whereby Edmond will show people how to start or grow their gardens.

The concern itself is blooming. In February, the three Charlestons, Elister, Edmond and Janie, attended the Tuskegee University Farmers Conference. The theme for the 134th annual affair was GROWING STRONGER TOGETHER. FAMILIES, FARMERS, AND FUTURES! They, wearing matching black shirts adorned with the name of their farm, covered the nutrition class and how that further makes their farm unique.

The three have a book signing coming up. They are featured in a book about food insecurity in rural areas. They recently hired their first ever summer intern, a local grad with a degree in public health. The farm was recently chosen to be featured in the Alabama state tourism guide.  

The slots for the let’s-chat nutrition classes on the farm in June and September were filled within a week of registration. They were filled across generations, for kids to grandparents, from as far as Boston, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Kansas, Chicago, Kentucky, Nashville, Atlanta,, North Carolina, Northern Georgia, and Birmingham. They include students, gardeners, farmers, teachers, and folks just wanting to while away the time. Only a few spots remain for the farm tours in July and September. Both offerings include storytime with Grandaddy Elister under the water oak, with talks about farming, faith, and life.

THIS SEASON

Around dusk, the three Charlestons—Elister, Edmond, and Janie—convene under the water oak tree by the barn. They end their days under the tree, talking, spending time together, to return to the field the next morning. 

It is now mid-May, and they are waiting for that last rain. A good, slow, soaking rain, hopefully in the next two to three weeks. “It’ll wet the soil and hold it,” Edmond explained, “and that’ll give the vegetables time, because they blooming now, producing and fruiting. That will give you vegetables time to get it and make.” 

Elister is thinking about planting some watermelon that bears his last name. Some Charleston Gray.

“The farmer is,” said Elister. “God kind of holds the farmer responsible for all life because if it wasn’t for the farmer, everybody depending on the farmer to eat. They go to the grocery store to get peas, butter beans, squash, meat, okra, and everything, they got to get it from the farmer. So the farmer plays the part of life. He’s your nourishment. He is your history. He is your strength. He is your way out of no way because God made a way for him to grow it, for you to get it, to do what you need to do.”