Alice’s Garden Urban Farm has strong roots in Milwaukee’s Black community. Located northwest of downtown, its history starts with displacement, after a highway that was never built forced African Americans out of Milwaukee’s original Bronzeville neighborhood.
After the land was cleared, a park and the garden were eventually built there. It’s named after Alice Mead-Taylor, the First African American executive director of Milwaukee County Extension. The 2.2 acre farm also sits on the site that marks the beginning of Wisconsin’s underground railroad.
Venice Williams, the farm’s executive director, believes culture deserves to be celebrated and reclaimed in agricultural spaces.
Williams says the American history of enslavement and colonization has impacted Black and brown communities’ relationship with the land.
“Over the years, food and land has been and continues to be weaponized against brown and Black people. So, part of my role, part of my responsibility as one of the caretakers of this land is to help Black folks to understand that the, the shame of that period of enslavement is not ours to carry,” says Williams.
On top of that, growing your own food can give people a sense of autonomy over what they eat.
“So, helping people of African descent in this country to understand that we, we deserve land and good soil to cultivate our own food and there's nothing to be ashamed about with that and we should not be running from that,” says Williams.
Williams says at Alice’s Garden, gardening is the carrot that brings people into a green space to improve their lives overall. But gardening isn’t the only way the organization aims to help people connect with their community and culture. It’s through how we eat as well.
“We are asking people to go deep into their ancestral memory, deep into their DNA and to reclaim some of those nourishing traditions of their ancestors related to food, related to cooking and related to being human together,” says Williams.
Food and how we consume it can connect us to past generations. We can learn how our ancestors thought about food and connection.
Williams has cultivated 14 types of okra here. She says preparing the okra and sharing recipes with others helped them connect with the past.
“Food helps us to remember. And so people started to tell the stories of their great grandma's gumbo and what it meant to be at a table, to be in that kitchen, to grow pinto beans and black-eyed peas,” says Williams.
The farm is made up of individual plots belonging to different community members. Some will take their harvest to farmers markets, others just enjoy their spring flowers blooming or grow food for their families. Some even just come through to sit and admire the scenery.
“You should not have to leave an urban context to find peace, to find serenity, to find yourself. You shouldn't have to retreat from the city to honor your own spirit and nourish your own soul. Community gardens and urban farms who understand the history and the need offer spaces to do that very well,”Venice Williams
Beyond the garden plots, Alice’s Garden runs events such as reading circles, herbal apprenticeships, evening artisan's markets, free yoga classes and cooking demonstrations.
Everyone is welcome at Alice’s Garden. Williams even jokes that the lock on the gate is the most useless lock in Milwaukee, as well as over 200 people have a key to enter the space any time they would like and for practically any reason.
For Williams and Alice's Garden, the outdoors is a sanctuary and classroom where the wider community can come together and connect deeper with themselves, their neighbors and their food.
