Yonnette Fleming (born 1968) is an American urban farmer and community earth steward based in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Fleming is part of the environmental movement, her work focusing on urban

community gardens A community garden is a piece of land gardened or cultivated by a group of people individually or collectively. Normally in community gardens, the land is divided into individual plots. Each individual gardener is responsible for their own plo ...

and black farmers.

Early life

Yonnette Fleming was born in

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

. Her family worked with indigenous communities, growing coconuts, sugar, rice, and other crops. She immigrated to New York in 1983 from Georgetown, Guyana.

Career

Yonnette Fleming joined Hattie Carthan Community Garden, located at Marcy and Lafayette in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, in 2003 while working on

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...

. In 2008, she left her Wall Street job in order to commit to herself to community resilience and food. In 2009, she helped establish the

farmers market A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or ...

. She is currently an urban food justice educator, and vice president of the Hattie Carthan Community Garden and her work addresses

food security Food security speaks to the availability of food in a country (or geography) and the ability of individuals within that country (geography) to access, afford, and source adequate foodstuffs. According to the United Nations' Committee on World F ...

and food justice concerns. She teaches inter-generational workshops including cooking, urban farming, herbalism, and plant medicine while focusing on the needs of the community. Within her workshops, she calls on participants to think on how structures of oppression have impacted their own lives and how to confront them. Fleming is also a member of the Farm School's advisory board where she teaches a food justice course. In addition to her work as a food advocate, Fleming is an ordained minister, plant and sound medicine practitioner, reiki master, and herbalist.

References

External links

Hattie Carthan Community Garden Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fleming, Yonnette Guyanese emigrants to the United States Living people Education activists American anti-racism activists American human rights activists Activists for African-American civil rights American women's rights activists Farmers practicing sustainable agriculture American community activists American environmentalists American women environmentalists American anti-poverty advocates Sustainability advocates People from Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Activists from New York (state) Reiki practitioners African-American farmers American women farmers 1968 births Women civil rights activists 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women Urban farmers 20th-century American women farmers 21st-century American women farmers 21st-century American farmers 20th-century American farmers