I WAS BORN and raised here in Sandtown-Winchester in Baltimore. I’m 75. A lot of folks I grew up with left, but I felt the call to stay. We wanted to support citizens returning home from incarceration. We felt that teaching them how to farm would be a first step in the rehabilitation process. A returning citizen suggested we call our group Strength to Love II after a collection of Martin Luther King’s messages that we were reading.

The farmland was leased to us by the city of Baltimore for $1. Everything was dumped there, from commodes to sinks to mattresses and tires. We beautified it by clearing all that out. We put together 60-foot-long hoop tunnels to grow vegetables year-round. We’re smack in the middle of the hustle and bustle of an urban environment. You have the smell of asphalt because we are across the street from an asphalt company. You can hear vehicles passing by. But you can smell the different aromas of fruit and vegetables.

The farm is there to end food apartheid in our area. Our lack of nourishing food has been placed upon us through neglect. It’s a human error. Most of the people who live in our community cannot travel outside of the community to get nourishing food.

I feel that we are God’s despised. We are Nazareth where no good thing can come out of. Jesus was from Nazareth. This neighborhood is where Freddie Gray met his demise 10 years ago. There’s bright, brilliant, wonderful people in the community. We’re all connected. That’s what the world cannot see. Our nation today is about separateness and inequality. But I’m fighting for equality.