Art work by Pamela Zagarenski, Illustrator & Author of Sacredbee Greeting Cards
In celebration and support of Juneteenth 2020 and the Black Lives Matter movement, Maxie B’s will be donating 10% of our sales this weekend to several organizations (some private, some non-profit) that foster the solidarity of this movement and the right for equality, peace, and safety for the Black community as the path forward for all humankind.
We will continue to open our hearts and minds and to act with purpose and intention to create lasting and meaningful bonds with everyone in our community.
As this oh-so-important year continues to unfold for Greensboro, for North Carolina, for the United States, and for the world … we must all say goodbye to anything that was considered “normal” and hello to our future. May it look like a happy dream … filled with joy, laughter, compassion, and health for all living creatures. Let’s start right now by embracing this opportunity to reconcile our mistakes, listen, learn, and commit to becoming who we should be … real people who care about one another. It’s really quite simple ... our world is telling us how wrong we have been in so many ways. There is an uprising, a power of a collective commitment to change, and a realization that we all need to pay attention and learn more.
In that spirit, we want to make it clear that we both celebrate and stand in solidarity with our Black community and we are embracing this time as one of great importance and opportunity.
Our staff at the bakery is quite diverse, young, and invigorated by the Black Lives Matter movement. Open conversations and suggestions are a daily event and we embrace new ideas. We are currently building a lending library for our team of books on social and environmental justice to help us grow. While we have been fully focused on environmental causes for the past few years, there is a new light shining on that topic. We know that a healthy world is just not free from pollution but is also free of oppression, violence, and economic strain no matter where one lives.
Our customers at the bakery come from near and far and are of every race. We are a meeting place for everyone who enjoys good cake! We have the pleasure of making people happy … no matter where their ancestors are from. We celebrate a shared love for scratch-made cake and the happiness it can bring to a lazy Sunday afternoon or 75th birthday! My father used to love coming to the bakery just to people watch and listen to the conversations amongst customers as they pondered what flavor to purchase.
To quote Kieran Suckling, Executive Director for the Center for Biological Diversity:
“We stand with the protesters demanding an immediate end to racial police violence, to racial violence of all kinds. We stand with protesters demanding a recognition of white supremacy and an end to racism. We stand with everyone who cannot breathe.”
One way of communicating and influencing people is through the power of storytelling. Let us all share real-life stories with those we know that will let minds and hearts open where they were closed. This will help to create lasting change, which is the only kind of change any of us want to see.
According to Scalawag Magazine in April of 2020, there are more than 500 farms in Forsyth County, only 6 of which are Black owned. In fact, African Americans currently make up less than 2% of the country’s 3.4 million farmers. One hundred years ago, there were more than a million Black farmers in the United States. Sharing information like this and then following perhaps with a story about a Black family who is farming and doing amazing things with it is inspiring and allows us to realize and then connect to a real disparity within our community.
For example, we have Samantha Foxx…a Master Beekeeper, Master Gardener and the owner of Mother’s Finest Urban Farms (https://www.mothersfinesturbanfarms.com). She has a deep understanding of the land and of the importance of teaching her children what she knows … they each have their own roles on the farm! Or what about Michael Banner, an urban farmer in Winston Salem who is also teaching his children and many others in the Winston community about farming as one of the founders of the Urban Farm School at the NC Cooperative Extension office. There is also Stanley Hughes and Linda Leach who own Pine Knot Farms (https://www.pineknotfarmsnc.com) in Hurdle Mills near Hillsborough. Their farm is over 100 years old and has been in Mr. Hughes family for 3 generations. They farm organically and received the Farmer of the Year award in 2013 from The Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and have been in Our State Magazine as well.
Not too long ago, I had the pleasure of attending a luncheon honoring Toni Tipton-Martin, the James Beard Award-winning author of “Jubilee … Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking.” I could have listened to her talk for days. Talk about telling stories! Toni has a few to share! Afterwards, we all had the deep pleasure of helping ourselves (repeatedly!) to a buffet of some of her favorite foods. I had to go and pull out the cookbook as I was writing this post … and when I opened it I found a quite poignant notecard that I had also purchased the day of the luncheon. The art and message from that card is what you see in this post. When I sat down to write this tonight…I had no idea where to begin or where to end. I just started typing what I felt in my heart. That is how I try to live my life … in the moment and making the best decision in every moment so that I can sleep well at night and be happy with my life when it is finished. Let us all.