Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This introductory chapter situates the primary theoretical and empirical aims of the book. An opening vignette retells the story of Black Wall Street, a famous, affluent Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that was burned down during the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. The vignette situates the place-based context of Oklahoma as a site for locating Black community sovereignty and resilience, and introduces the manuscript’s central case study, the National Women in Agriculture Association (NWIAA), as a visionary new “Black Wall Street” movement spearheaded by Black women. From there, it zooms out to provide a broad overview of Black farming history, making specific connections to how structural inequities in agriculture reify on-the-ground health disparities among African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) communities. Then, it discusses the role of agriculture toward developing asset-based, upstream approaches to community food security—an important shift away from dominant public health intervention models. The last section of the chapter introduces the guiding theoretical framework of the book, politics of resourcefulness, to analyze the participants’ political organizing and capacity-building strategies against the backdrop of intersectional inequity and structural violence. Finally, the chapter concludes by previewing the book and outlining the remaining chapters.</jats:p>