Oct 9, 2025
Dr. Monica M. White presented Freedom Farmers: Agricultural
Resistance and Institution Building." The presentation provided
context for understanding agriculture as a strategy of resilience
and resistance for African Americans. It will offer a perspective
of the labor and commitment to agriculture from those in southern
Black rural communities to those building community-based food
systems in urban spaces.
About Monica White
Dr. Monica M. White is the Distinguished Chair of Integrated
Environmental Studies, associate professor of environmental justice
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and past president of the
board of directors for the Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty
Network. She is the first Black woman to earn tenure in both the
College of Agricultural Life Sciences (established 1889) and the
Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies (established 1970), to
which she is jointly appointed. As the founding director of the
Office of Environmental Justice and Engagement (OEJ) at UW-Madison,
Dr. White works toward bridging the gap between the university and
the broader community by connecting faculty and students to
community-based organizations that are working in areas of
environmental/food/land justice toward their mutual benefit. Her
research investigates Black grassroots organizations that are
engaged in the development of sustainable, community-based food
systems as a strategy to respond to issues of hunger and food
inaccessibility. In collaboration with the National Black Food and
Justice Alliance, she serves as the Director of the HBCU project
that seeks to develop agroecology centers at 1890-land grant
institutions. She was an Andrew Carnegie Fellow for 2022-2024 and
received the 2024 Distinguished Career for the Career Award in the
Service of Sociology from the American Sociological
Association.
Dr. White’s first book, Freedom Farmers: Agricultural
Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement (University of North
Carolina Press, 2019) received the First Book Award from the
Association of Association for the Study of Food in Society, the
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award from the Division of
Race and Ethnic Minorities Section of the Society for the Study of
Social Problems, and an Honored Book Award from the Gendered
Perspectives section of the Association of American
Geographers.
In addition to this audio, you can read the full transcript of
the conversation and watch the lecture recording on Shareable.net—while you’re there
get caught up on past lectures.
Cities@Tufts Lectures
explores the impact of urban planning on our communities and the
opportunities to design for greater equity and justice with
professor Julian
Agyeman.
Cities@Tufts Lectures is produced by Tufts University
and Shareable.net with support
from Barr Foundation,
Paige
Kelly is our co-producer and audio editor. The original
portrait of Monica White was illustrated by Jess Milner, and the series is
co-produced and hosted by Tom
Llewellyn.
“Light Without Dark” by Cultivate Beats
is our theme song.
