Dr. Gail Myers is a cultural anthropologist, creator of the film project, Rhythms of the Land and Co-founder of Farms to Grow, Inc. In 1997, while pursuing her doctorate at The Ohio State University, she conducted her first interviews with African American farmers.
Her passion for Black farmers developed as a result of hearing stories of their loss and struggles without recognition for their contributions. For the last 23 years she has been interviewing, researching, writing about, and filming the stories of African American farmers. Myers is considered an expert in the anthropology of African American farming.
Rhythms of the Land documentary fills the void of these missing agrarian narratives and honors these sharecroppers, farmers, and gardeners.

Karen is a farmer and activist. She is Co-owner/Farmer at Rise & Root Farm in Chester New York. An activist, food advocate; in 2010, Co-Founded Black Urban Growers (BUGS) an organization supporting growers in both urban and rural settings. In 2012, Ebony magazine voted her one of their 100 most influential African Americans in the country and in 2014 was the recipient of the James Beard Leadership Award. In 2020 Essence magazine name Karen one of their Essential Heroes recipients, and in 2021 Forbes magazine named Karen one of their 50 over 50 impact list of women making a difference. Karen serves on the boards of the New York Botanical Gardens, Soul Fire Farm, the Mary Mitchell Center, Black Farmer Fund, and Green Workers Cooperative.

Mia Charlene White, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Urban & Environmental Studies in the Schools for Public Engagement at The New School. Originally from Queens, Mia identifies as a Black woman of African American and Korean descent. She is a proud mother of two creative children and has been recognized for transformation and healing-centered teaching methods with a 2021 university-wide Social Justice Teaching award. Mia did her PhD in urban planning at MIT, her master of international affairs at Columbia, and her bachelor’s degree in anthropology at SUNY Stonybrook.

For the last few years, Mia has been engaged in multiple conversations linking land and housing justice for a new social contract, and is working on her first book manuscript exploring reparations through housing and land decommodification models. She is a 2022-2023 Mellon Faculty Fellow and serves as Associate Director of the Tishman Environment and Design Center, and Associate Director of the Housing Justice Lab at Parsons. She co-leads the BIPOC Planners Collective @ Planners Network; is an ongoing member of the Black Geographers Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers (AAG); is a appointed member of the South Orange Village (NJ) Zoning Board of Adjustment, and is an elected member of the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) of the American Association of Geographers (AAG).

Mia works with several community-based organizations in NJ and NYC to deliver political education on affordable housing, environmental justice, and racial justice. She was recently a jurist for the inaugural Bandung 2022 Artists Residency recently launched by A4 and MoCADA, a new program to foster solidarity and understanding between Black and Asian American/Pacific Islander communities in NYC. Mia's work is interdisciplinary, situated among radical planners, geographers, urban theorists, sociologists and historians seeking to link social science, humanities, and protest.

Iyeshima (eye-she-mah) started her mark in the food justice movement over 10 years ago. As a Jamaican native, she struggled with the process of assimilation into a new culture. Through farming she found great comfort in her community. Throughout her involvement in the movement, Iyeshima has taught food justice, advocated for universal free school lunch, assisted in the development and sustainment of youth-led organizations.

She is dedicated to integrating youth empowerment and leadership into adult dominated sectors. With a double major of Political Science & Sociology, and current studies in Public Administration, Iyeshima wishes to combine her passion for food justice and her knowledge of American politics to drive the importance of food in people’s everyday life. Iyeshima is currently the Director of Youth Community Engagement at Green Guerillas and the Policy Manager at Equity Advocates. 

Sawdayah Brownlee is a farmer, educator, home cook, and artist and a proud community gardener at Central Bainbridge Community Garden in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. She is an alum of Howard University and received her BA in Africana Studies and studied Agricultural Education at North Carolina A&T State University.

As a farmer and agricultural/environmental educator, she has taught classes and workshops in sustainable agriculture, botany, agricultural history in the African Diaspora, and food systems to intergenerational groups at D-Town Farm in Detroit, MI, The Youth Farm (formerly located in E. Flatbush, Brooklyn), Farm School NYC, the DreamYard Project, and other community spaces since 2011. Sawdayah continues teaching and building community members' capacity to organize for their needs as the manager of Community Organizing and Special Initiatives at the DreamYard Project as well as in her community gatherings entitled 'Homemaking as Resistance.'