As we kick off another Black History Month, Farm Aid is excited to serve up our second helping of Breaking Bread, our popular education Lunch and Listen series. In the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and subsequent movements for basic needs and human dignity, Breaking Bread seeks to uplift the human experience, adding real life stories to our political and social justice movements. There is no justice without centering the people impacted by injustice.
The impetus for starting this series was curiosity. How have food and farm movements informed the decisions we make everyday? The lives we lead? The places we call home? This year, Breaking Bread will dissect the meaning of social movements and how everyday people have engaged in the fight for justice as something that is owed, as opposed to something that’s earned. This is the place the series begins. For February, we’ll be in convo with artist, producer, writer, shirlette ammons about her acclaimed podcast, Tending, which depicts the harrowing fights of Black farmers against the injustice of the USDA.
In March, we’ll have a conversation with professor Francesca Polletta, of the University of California, Irvine. She studies politics, protest and culture, asking how and when politically disadvantaged groups have mobilized meanings to make change. Her books include Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements (Univ. Chicago, 2002), It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics (Univ. Chicago, 2006), Inventing the Ties that Bind: Imagined Relationships in Moral and Political Life (Univ. Chicago, 2020), and, with Edwin Amenta, Changing Minds: Social Movements’ Cultural Impacts (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2025).
Social entrepreneur, earth and social justice activist, finance activist, farmer and mindfulness teacher Konda Mason, joins us in April. Konda wears several hats. She is founder and President of Jubilee Justice, Inc, a nonprofit working to bring climate resilient farming and economic equity to Black farmers in the rural South in order to create thriving Black farming communities and shared prosperity via cooperative economics. Konda also is co-founder of Potlikker Capital, which is a charitable loan fund specially designed to deploy “reparative” capital to farmers of color. This should be a fruitful conversation with much to glean.
The Farm Aid Hotline will be featured during May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month. We’ll learn more about the work of the Farm Aid Hotline and about farmer mental health and stress after a climate disaster, an aspect often overlooked as farmers attempt to rebuild and recover. We’ll hear from a panel of special guest speakers (TBD), as well as time for Q&A and resource sharing.
Come get your second helping of Breaking Bread. We’ll gather ’round virtually on February 26th at 12:30pm EST. We hope to see you there!
Click here to register to attend ourBreaking Bread sessions.
