Black History Month Ms. Helen DuBose

Here is another for the series on Black History Month about the late Ms. Helen DuBose

Ms. Helen DuBose passed away on January 24, 2015 at the age of 95 and was a great person in the History of the Black People.  She was believed to be the first black woman in the United States to garner an agriculture degree and was widely recognized for her work in the ways to do organic farming.  Helen DuBose had gone on to earn two master’s degrees in agriculture and agriculture economics from the Tuskeegee Institute.  Helen lived for 32 years on her 12 acre McDonough blueberry farm called Healing Acres.

Helen DuBose was given the 2013 Georgia Organics award named the Barbara Petit Pollinator Award.  The Executive Director Alice Rolls said she contributed so much to the farming culture in Georgia.  Helen was definitely a legendary farmer and agricultural teacher and gave inspiration to so many, especially young African American growers exclaimed Ms. Rolls.  Her work with the land has left a legacy that history will tell and future farmers will benefit.

Helen DuBose was covered by the local paper back in 2010.  She commented that farming was her life.  She said that farming is part of us and that farmers have always been the backbone of America.  Helen grew up on a shade tobacco farm.  This farm produced tobacco for cigars.  She remembered how hard it was for black farmers in the early 20th century.  She realized from childhood that a black sharecropper was at the bottom of the pile except on tobacco farms.  She wanted to learn more about farming and also in the process help those sharecroppers she saw everyday.  She felt she wanted to grow up and see that a better chance for a better living at farming for the black people.

Helen became the first person in her family since slavery to continue through school beyond the sixth grade.  She was the first in her family to graduate from college getting a bachelor’s degree in 1941 at Florida A&M.  She would become the first black woman in the country to earn such a degree. When she left college she went back to farming.  She cultivated some 40 acres that she purchased from her grandfather close to Thomasville, GA.  She also went on to teach high school English in the area.  Helen also worked for the USDA with the agriculture migrant workers in the Everglades of Florida.  As World War II came, she taught programs to increase farm output for the war effort.  During the whole time she worried about the lives of black farmers.  She said that people don’t understand the inequity that exists between the government entities as far as black farmers are concerned.

She wanted her blueberry farm to give the young generation a spearhead to appreciate farming.  As she said you can’t live a day without something from the farm.  She felt that young people are getting a better and healthier view of farming and the needs of the farmers than they once had.  Some are born to be farmers and they should be respected for doing so.

Our world has be blessed to have Mrs. DuBose in our midst.  She has taught many a lesson and has brought forth food for the tables of the uncounted.  Her blueberry farm was exceptional and we will miss her.  The first time I met her was in 1983 when she was 64 years young and still going.  She was a dynamo in the farming industry and will always be remembered for bringing forth a Black Woman of Substance to the world of agriculture.  McDonough lost a legend when she recently passed away.

References:
1.      Agriculture of America
2.      The State Archives.
3.      The Henry Herald Newspaper.
4.      Lemon Funeral Directors