"To Live and Thrive on New Earths": The Earthseed Land Collective and Black Freedom

In 2016, on the ancestral lands of the Eno in what is now Durham, North Carolina, seven Black and Latinx farmers and organizers created the Earthseed Land Collective, a residence, farm, and community space named in homage to the not-so-speculative world imagined by the late science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler in her two-book series, Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. This article tells the story of Earthseed as the ongoing process of its members plotting an otherwise world for themselves and future generations, an endeavor to live in intimate, cooperative relationship with the land, with each other, and with their communities. Though their reasons for choosing the collective are wide-ranging, the members are mutually committed to building ways of living and modes of trust that could not be accomplished individually.