Abstract

Quite a few years ago now Mama Queen Bogues came and stayed a summer with my family in Indiana. My brothers and I were fairly young at the time, and during that visit, school was pretty far from our minds. And though she has long since passed, I vividly remember that summer"the last extended time we had with her in spite of several subsequent visits to her farm in Camden, North Carolina"and learning from the woman who had raised my grandmother, my mother, and one of my nine aunts and uncles in spite of never having birthed any children of her own. The thought of that farm in Camden where my mother grew up under the supervision of Mama Queen still makes me smile when I reminisce about the many mornings of pumping water; getting fresh eggs every day; and the smell of cheese grits, bacon, and biscuits. And the education we received from and through her was priceless. Our family was no different from the other Black folk in Camden in that my parents formed an integral part of a rural, tightknit, African American community.1 In fact we are related to almost everyone in town either by blood or marriage (or both).

How to Cite:

Harris II, E., (2021) “Black Soil in the Mississippi Delta: Thriving on the Farm Against the Odds”, Journal of Research in Rural Education 37(7), 1–8. doi: https://doi.org/10.26209/jrre3707-03

Rights: Copyright