We should have known from the start. An unseasonably warm Wednesday turned into a cold and windy Thursday. At the campus police office we were informed as to where the corner of East Main and Martin Luther King Boulevard was located. Then, we figured out that the "Third Thursday Thing" was being held out at KSU's Research Farm, some seven miles away.
Then it all became clear. We had been given permission to march in a location far, far from where the farmers were meeting. OK. I get it.
Despite the weather, some of us made our way out to the farm, and actually attended some of the listening sessions. Key leaders in agriculture from KSU and the state of Kentucky were there, along with a large number of Black farmers and a few White farmers. On the third day of a Kentucky Small Farmers Conference, we were interlopers. We were not invited, but we had attended.
A part of our group was removed with a police escort to the entrance to the farm while some of the rest of us had lunch inside with the farmers. That was an enjoyable occasion, chatting with Black farmers who surely wondered why we were there. We simply moved about, introducing ourselves and asking about the state of the Black farmer in Kentucky. Some seemed genuinely interested in the interest that we showed. The three of us were oblivious as to what was happening outside.
After a brief time at the entrance to the farm, we adjourned to a restaurant in Frankfort to consider strategy and next steps. It was an enlightening afternoon with Mr. Young, his brother, and a variety of other activists. His story needs to be told. People need to hear his story. His story deserves some action from some people who have the power to make things happen.
I'm still curious as to how we were not invited to leave, how it was that we got to stay and eat chicken and dumplings, and turkey and dumplings, and vegetables, and how we got to enjoy those conversations.
