'Black Earth,' a portrait of a NC farmer who bought the land where his ancestors were enslaved

By Leoneda Inge,

Published January 15, 2025 at 10:47 AM EST

Littleton, NC - July 12th, 2024: Patrick Brown sits for a portrait at the outside Oakley Grove Plantation home he purchased.

In 2021, Warren County farmer Patrick Brown bought the plantation where his ancestors were once enslaved. He’s working to build a just and sustainable food system, to enrich both the soil and his community, on land once used to extract and exploit.

Due South's Leoneda Inge talks to Brown, as well as to writer Christina Cooke and photographer Cornell Watson about the story they collaborated on about Brown and his work. The piece is called “Black Earth” and it recently appeared in The Bitter Southerner.

Guests

Christina Cooke, freelance writer and associate editor at the food policy site Civil Eats

Cornell Watson, freelance photographer

Patrick Brown, farmer and manager of Brown Family Farms and owner of Connect Group, LLC

Due South

Leoneda Inge

Leoneda Inge is the co-host of WUNC's "Due South." Leoneda has been a radio journalist for more than 30 years, spending most of her career at WUNC as the Race and Southern Culture reporter. Leoneda’s work includes stories of race, slavery, memory and monuments. She has won "Gracie" awards, an Alfred I. duPont Award and several awards from the Radio, Television, Digital News Association (RTDNA). In 2017, Leoneda was named "Journalist of Distinction" by the National Association of Black Journalists.

See stories by Leoneda Inge

Rachel McCarthy

Rachel McCarthy is a producer for "Due South." She previously worked at WUNC as a producer for "The Story with Dick Gordon." More recently, Rachel was podcast managing editor at Capitol Broadcasting Company where she developed narrative series and edited a daily podcast. She also worked at "The Double Shift" podcast as supervising producer. Rachel learned about audio storytelling at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Prior to working in audio journalism, she was a research assistant at the Aspen Institute in Washington, DC.

See stories by Rachel McCarthy