Living off the land: the new sisterhood of Black female homesteaders

From the South Side of Chicago to tiny Carolina farms, a growing number of Black women are reclaiming the land - and their wellbeing

The car made its way along a tree-lined gravel road. The sky was clear, and as the car drove by, the trees swayed from side to side, almost like a sign of welcome. The road opened up into a large pasture. In the middle of the pasture was a wooden pergola with grapes growing on it and a circular garden surrounding it. Tiny houses dotted the pasture, as brown children played merrily in the mud. In the center of all of this, planting in the circular garden like she was Mother Earth herself, was a Black woman.