The Black Land Bus turns 1 🥳🥳🥳

Today is our anniversary! November 15th, the day komunity first konvened to turn a handicap accessible Fayette Kounty School Bus into a vehicle for konnnekting with the land beneath our feet…

What is the Black Land Bus?

For those yet to have participated in this dream, The Black Land Bus is a tool to build infrastrukture on our lands & skills in our komunities. For the past year we’ve been building a mobile workshop space that will have the tools necessary to build for black and indigenous farmers akross the deep south. The BLBus will fokus on natural building techniques to kreate buried greenhouses, klay ovens, kompost systems, earthen rainwater harvesting systems, and whatever farmers/komunitites need to thrive. This land projekt on wheels sprouted from South Atlanta’s vision for a komunity kitchen as opposed to Cop City.

more info on instagram @BuildingKujichagulia

“We must build small before we kan build big.” -Thayu Lou Hamer

For the past year we have been designing & dekonstrukting the inside of the BLBus to prepare for the building of the flexible workshop space, medicinal herb garden, native seed pantry, chicken koop, self sustainable living space, and artistik inspiration that will one day build the komunity kitchen. … let me say, Atlanta has been workin! On substack @BlackLandBus we’ve documented some of our trips & progress, but konsider this the konstruktion katchup post (trip rekap will be another post).

On this blessed day, a year ago we gathered to get the big bulky seats out the back of the Black Land Bus… wheeeewwww that was not easy! We had to have someone under the BLBus holdin a bolt, yelling “GO” to someone inside the BLBus unskrewin it, tryin not to krush the other’s fingers, all while I insisted on blasting musik & good vibes. It took like 3 days & 14+ hours but we got it done .t

Skippin over some small trips, some big trips, saving plants from frost, removing invasives, and the Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day stretch when the BLBus was with mechaniks (see last substack post for details), the design became fuller & more flavorful.

By the time spring kame back around & a few of us returned from Texas, we jumped back into BLBus Build Days. Learning to use more power tools as we dismantled the roof & his insulation , wires were unkovered and road blocks were hit. It took us like 3 months to figure out “just kause people on youtube are doin all these extra steps, dont mean we need to”. And with that, we stopped disturbing the wheelchair lift & accessories (we’re keeping all that!). Still we did remove everything down to the subfloor & rusty nails.

In this time, sunflowers grew tall & beans sprouted everywhere they were spread. Trips & side projekts saw the kreation of new gardens akross Atlanta. The Black Land Bus set up the Building Kujichagulia Art Exhibit at festivals akross the city before taking a big road trip to Detroit.

When we got back to Atlanta (I promise there’s a trips rekap koming soon, but Detroit is already posted on substack!), we hosted a BLBus Build Day in front of the West End Mall. With this publik facing get-together, the Black Land Bus reached new people. On this day we painted the exterior, started waterproofing the back interior, and gave the BLBus his first piece of furniture!. A lil handy folding table and drawer set now lives in the BLBus where the medicinal herb garden will one day go.

We got to more waterproofing, sent out more postcards, and harvested beans before mechanik issues put a hiatus on the show (details in last post), but follow @BlackLandBus on substack to support (paid or unpaid both appreciated) & know when he exits the mechanik shop. When we do resume, we will be sekonds away from starting to build up the self sustainable living space, garage, french cleats, kitchen, and komposting toilet.

I’m personally excited for the future & grateful for all the love, support, and time people have poured into the Black Land Bus. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, THANK YOU!