The Ypsi Farmers & Gardeners: An Enduring Legacy exhibit, is currently on display at the Ypsilanti District Library's Superior Township branch, showcasing stories from its latest narrators.
The Ypsi Farmers & Gardeners Oral History Project is a digital archive through the Ypsilanti District Library that highlights the oral histories of Black, Indigenous and people of color gardeners and working-class farmers. The exhibit will run until Sept. 26, 2026. Visitors can scan the QR code on each narrator’s portrait and hear their stories.
The project began in 2013 when project lead Finn Bell was conducting research for his dissertation at the University of Michigan.
After interviewing BIPOC gardeners and working-class farmers in Ypsilanti, Bell recognized the importance of sharing their stories beyond his dissertation and perspective.
“I was interviewing farmers and gardeners, especially BIPOC working-class folks, and they told me amazing stories that really needed to be shared beyond just my dissertation," Bell said. "I wanted everyone who wanted to hear their stories to be able to."
In 2023, Bell invited the people who had shared their stories as part of his dissertation to the same library to discuss what should come next. Together, they decided to expand the work into an oral history project that would allow community members to share their stories in their own words, without editing or filtering. With support from the library, the project was created as a resource open to the community.
Community members attend the Aug. 17 reception of the Ypsi Farmers and Gardeners: An Enduring Legacy oral history exhibit at the Superior Township branch of the Ypsilanti District Library. (Photo by Nick Azzaro; courtesy of Finn Bell)
At an Aug. 17 reception for the exhibit, Bell thanked everyone for attending and those who helped make the project possible, including late community leaders Melvin Parson and Linda Mealing, both prominent figures in the local gardening and farming community.
Jean Winborn, a genealogy professor and longtime participant in the project, was one of Bell’s professors and part of the first group of narrators in 2023. She also served as an interviewer for the project.
During the reception, Winborn shared her personal connection to growing food, recalling her childhood in Ann Arbor in the 1950s, when her father had a garden plot across the street from their home in what is now Kerrytown, where anyone could come and get food grown from the garden.
Next, participants and contributors of the project joined in a panel discussion, answering audience questions and reflecting on their lives, legacies and experiences growing food, as well as its importance to their cultures and communities.
The panel featured story narrators Julius Buzzard and Kyunghee Kim, community advisory board member Akaiia Hill, and project interviewer P. Deisha Myles.
Buzzard emphasized the importance of sharing stories and the impact they can have on others.
“Our stories are so, so powerful, and when we get in rooms and we share our stories with one another, they move people. And it doesn’t matter how much money they have, it doesn’t matter what the color of their skin is. When you connect with somebody with a story, you build community, and it really does create the ability for us to move with one another,” said Buzzard.
After an audience member asked the panelists if they had a mentor who inspired them, Kim said hers was her mother, someone she feels she has little in common with.
“For this context — gardening, growing — definitely my mom,” she said.
“And I’m surprised by that because her and I are very different,” Kim said, laughing, as the audience laughed along. “I always think we have nothing in common. Somehow, we both love food. Through that, it has been the source of getting to know each other because it can break barriers."
As the audience’s applause faded, attendees mingled with panel members, continued conversations sparked during the discussion, grabbed food, and listened to the oral histories presented in the exhibit.
Newest narrators of The Ypsi Farmers and Gardeners: An Enduring Legacy oral history project are on display at the Superior Township branch of the Ypsilanti District Library. (Photo by Nick Azzaro; courtesy of Finn Bell)
One of the latest narrators of the Ypsi Farmers & Gardeners Oral History Project, Shalina Rankin, reflected on how she enjoyed the project and how it has helped her with her memory.
“I enjoyed it. It was actually really uplifting to talk about my experience,” Rankin said. “It has helped me. It is so funny ... as you go through life, you kind of forget things. So when someone’s asking you questions, you start remembering what you learned, what you have done, and how important something is."
