Knowledge Share Description
Maple sugaring is a craft and tradition passed down to us by the indigenous ancestors of Northeast Turtle Island to harvest sweetness directly from Sugar Maple trees. Early in the formation of the United States, abolitionists called for boycotts of Britain's largest import, enslaved-grown sugar, and offered maple syrup as an anti-oppressive alternative. Within a year, hundreds of thousands of people had participated in the boycott. In this knowledge share, we gather to honor the story of maple sugaring and its role in food justice history with Jalal Sabur.
Jalal Sabur is farmer, educator, food justice leader and organizer against incarceration who connects with the roots of early abolitionist movements by mapleing in the Hudson Valley each winter. Cultivating this patient relationship with the land, and committing to the slow labor with the trees is a sweet form of resistance for him.
Knowledge Share Includes
History of Maple sugaring in North East United States
Honoring the Sugar Maple Tree (Acer saccharum)
Maple Water
Introduction to harvesting and processing the Maple water into syrup
Maple Syrup's nutritional and medicinal offerings
Discussion around sugar and enslavement
The role of Maple Syrup in abolition
Maple syrups role in food justice
The work Sweet Freedom Farm is doing in relationship to maple syrup, growing ancestral crops such as sorghum and apple syrup.
Resource Package
8oz of 2021 Sweet Freedom Farm maple syrup harvest.
*Domestic orders only for resource packages. Shipping out mid to late April.
Exchange
$35 knowledge share
$75 knowledge share + resource package
$100 reparations (knowledge share + resource package). If you have financial abundance, this is our our pay-it-forward option to fund our scholarships and work redistributing resources to Black and Indigenous Land Projects)
For scholarships please email herbancura@gmail.com with subject Sugaring as Abolition Scholarships do not include resource package.
Access
*ASR Captioning provided
*Spanish interpretation available (Si requiere interpretacion por favor mande un email a herbancura@gmail.com)
Virtual Gathering
Zoom link will be sent out via email 1-2 days before knowledge share
Sunday March 28th
12-3pm EST
Class will be recorded and available for 30 days
Facilitator
Jalal Sabur co-founded the Freedom Food Alliance, a collective of small rural and urban farmers, activists, artists, community folks, and political prisoners who use food as an organizing tool. The Alliance founded the Victory Bus Project aimed at connecting urban and rural communities to support families of prisoners with transportation to prison in the Hudson Valley and a box of farm fresh food. Jalal is continuing the work of the Alliance with a focus on Sweet Freedom Farm in Germantown, NY doing farm education, a maple syrup operation and working on building a Grow Foods Not Prisons movement. Additionally, Jalal is a lead educator at Kites Nest, doing youth organizing and building an ATI (alternative to incarceration) program in the Hudson Valley