Learning the local legacies of people, food, and land at EarthDance

An article in the spirit of Juneteenth 2025.

On June 19, 1865, news reached the last enslaved people in Texas that they were free—a moment that would become Juneteenth, now a national celebration. In what is now Ferguson, Missouri, stories of freedom, land, and labor were unfolding, too.

Ferguson was founded ten years earlier, in 1855, as a whistle-stop railroad town along the North Missouri Railroad. Multiple tribes of Indigenous peoples, including the Missouria, Osage, and Illini, had been forcibly removed from the land in the preceding century. What we know of their way of life is that they lived in reverent community with the land, and that they were violently removed to less desirable, less fertile land. As white supremacy, disguised as Manifest Destiny, paved the way for European settling, a commodified, capitalist approach to agriculture came with it.

An archival postcard by H.H. Bregstone of 4 boys gathered in front of the Ferguson, MO post office. Via Ferguson Historical Society

Majority-white Ferguson quickly became a hub of capitalist agriculture—orchards, dairy farms, and vegetable fields stretched across its hills, including the Mueller Farm, which would eventually become EarthDance Organic Farm School.

An aerial photograph of Ferguson in 1937 – note how much acreage is dedicated to farming. Mueller Farm/EarthDance Organic Farm School would be at the very bottom edge of the image, perhaps even further south than the cutoff. Via Donald M. Appel, Ferguson Historical Society.

In the 1890s, the farm-adjacent land that would become Kinloch – Missouri’s first Black city – emerged as a safe haven for African Americans seeking land ownership and autonomy in the post-Reconstruction era. In defiance of systemic and literal barriers, families there built churches, schools, and business and farmed backyard plots, sharing knowledge rooted in ancestral agricultural practices, which have been fiercely protected and lovingly shared over generations. People violently displaced by settlers have preserved their agricultural legacies and food traditions over generations, bringing their practices and heritage with them in many ways, including seed saving. Many enslaved people even braided seeds into their hair in Africa to protect them in transit during captivity. These practices helped lay the broader foundation for their free descendants to establish their own autonomous cities in places like Kinloch.

Kinloch: Missouri’s First Black City by John A. Wright Sr. – The State Historical Society of Missouri

Ferguson and Kinloch lived in stark contrast. Ferguson was a sundown town well into the mid-20th century, with policies and policing that restricted movement of only Black individuals after dark. Black residents of Kinloch often worked as domestic workers or farmhands in Ferguson during the day but were forced to leave by nightfall. Despite these inequities, Kinloch thrived with a strong sense of community and self-determination—until St. Louis’ Lambert Airport expansion in the 1980s and into the 1990s decimated the town, buying out homes and razing neighborhoods under the promise of development (not a new phenomenon, as the city of St. Louis seized black neighborhoods for highway construction beginning in the 1950’s).

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 2, 1995

Ferguson’s demographics shifted from majority White to majority Black by the early 2000s, a shift caused by the racist migration movement known as white flight. According to 2024 census data, Ferguson is now 60% Black, and 53% of businesses in Ferguson are minority-owned (the census does not currently categorize business ownership by racial categories.) There are many Black led organizations and deep movement work in Ferguson and beyond, in no small part due to the local and national uprising against the deadly effects of systemic oppression at the hands of white supremacy in response to the killing of unarmed, 18-year-old Black Ferguson resident Mike Brown in 2014 white by then-Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson. Today, Ferguson and broader St. Louis have essential Black leadership in crucial long-term equity and justice work that are transforming systems and lives. An indicator of this systems transformation is the growing number of Black-led farms in North County.

In 2008, EarthDance was founded on what remained of the historic Mueller Farm. Today, it serves as a hopeful hub for regenerative agriculture, environmental justice, education and healthy food access. As a predominantly white non-profit organization in Ferguson, on native land and immediately adjacent to Kinloch, the EarthDance team continues to learn more about the history of the land and communities to which we belong. One way we do this is by researching and implementing historic Indigenous land stewardship, teaching and honoring regenerative practices such as interplanting in our fields, managing our resources with the intention of long-term sustainability, and creating systems that treat insects, fungi, and all living things as collaborators.

The Mueller Farm, founded in 1883, was two hundred acres at its most sprawling and farmed organically by the German-immigrant Mueller family. Over time, most of the land was sold off and developed as the residential and commercial district of Ferguson, but 14 acres remained farmland when Molly Rockamann Korte began to farm a parcel of it in 2008 with the knowledge that the Mueller’s had no descendants who wanted to farm it. Molly soon brought resources together to steward the land by founding EarthDance Organic Farm School, a nonprofit teaching farm that produces food and teaches people how to farm organically and regeneratively.

Mueller’s Organic Farm truck – Image via Mueller Farm archive

What we know of the recorded history of this land prior to 2008 includes that the Muellers tended it organically for three successive generations, spanning more than 140 years. We also know that the farm became a cornerstone of Ferguson’s local food system, supplying fresh produce to residents and markets in nearby St. Louis. We don’t know much about how the Mueller’s acquired this land, or how they connected with neighbors, including Kinloch during the period of segregation between Kinloch and Ferguson.

Under the current leadership of Interim Co-executive Directors Tiffany Brewer, the first Black executive leader of the organization, and Jena Hood, the first queer executive leader, our team is continuing to explore the strength and resilience of Black and queer people on this and neighboring land, along with the historic and current impacts of settlers of European descent.

Aerial photograph of EarthDance Organic Farm School in Ferguson, MO, 2024. Photographed by Terrance O’Connor.

“We’re working toward being a loving learning environment for anyone who shares a vision of community that honors the dignity of everyone, especially Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC,)” Tiffany said. “We do this by learning about – remembering – our history and trying to learn from it. Our goal is to continue to decolonize our own approaches to community and agriculture and to carry forward a kind and liberating legacy of land stewardship, with a lens of equity and inclusion that hopefully echoes the spirit of Juneteenth.”

Interim Co-Executive Director of EarthDance, Tiffany Brewer

As a production and teaching farm, all of our programs and classes are now offered using a solidarity model, with the exception of our apprenticeship programs, which we’ve shifted from a tuition-based model to a paid apprenticeship program.

“We definitely have not always gotten it right,” Jena says. “As an institution, we have caused harm. And we are always working to learn to do this less and how better to work toward repair when it happens. We are here to be in a community of growth. We invite anyone who is similarly aligned who likes to dig in the dirt – or be near people who like to dig in the dirt – to join us.” Jena also shared that the team is currently exploring equitable land-sharing models, as land access is the number one barrier to farming, especially for BIPOC farmers.

Interim Co-Executive Director of EarthDance, Jena Hood

We are committed to learning everything we can about this land and our community so that we may honor its full and rich history. If you are a person, especially a Black or Indigenous person, with ties to this land or want to share more of your story, we’d be very grateful to hear from you. We invite you to please call the farm at 314-521-1006 or email farm@earthdancefarms.org.

To learn more about the histories of Ferguson and Kinloch, our team recently watched this documentary, “Where the Pavement Ends” by Jane Gilooly, which we recommend. Our team also recently watched and highly recommends, “Farming While Black,” a powerful feature film based on the synonymous book by Black farmer, thought leader, and Co-Founder of SoulFire Farm Leah Penniman about “the rising generation of young Black farmers.” There’s also a source/reading list linked below.

We also recommend following and supporting local, Black-led farms, businesses, and other organizations, especially in Ferguson, but everywhere. For an overview of Black farms of St. Louis, we direct you to “One Africa! One Nation! Farmers Markets” list here.

Each June 19th, Juneteenth celebrations across North St. Louis County and the country honor a long arc of resilience. On the very soil once stewarded by indigenous tribes, worked by sharecroppers, immigrant farmers, and Black laborers, communities are planting seeds of freedom, food justice, and connection, tending to a future rooted in dignity and equity.

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