Dinwiddie County announces 2021 Hometown Heroes Carolyn Smith and John Bonner have been honored as this year s Dinwiddie Hometown Heroes. (Source: Dinwiddie County) By Hannah Eason | February 27, 2021 at 4:29 PM EST - Updated February 27 at 4:30 PM
DINWIDDIE COUNTY, Va. (WWBT) - Two Dinwiddie residents have been honored as 2021â²s Hometown Heroes, highlighting their backgrounds in law enforcement and agriculture in honor of Black History Month.
Carolyn A. Smith, a life-long resident of Dinwiddie County, was honored for her contributions to law enforcement.
Dinwiddie native John W. Bonner was honored for his contributions to the community through agriculture.
âIt was an honor to serve on the selection committee for the 2021 Hometown Heroes program. I feel these are two outstanding honorees,â said Harrison Moody, vice-chair of the Dinwiddie Board of Supervisors. âAs a farmer, I am especially pleased to see those recognized for contributions in agricult
African-American farmers are disappearing.
The legacy of structural inequality has steadily depleted their ranks. For nearly a century, racial discrimination in agriculture, exclusion from federal relief programs, and laws that preyed upon the economically disadvantaged have slashed the number of Black farmers in America from the nearly 1 million who farmed in 1920 to fewer than 50,000 today. This systemic dispossession of acreage and wealth makes farms like Julius Tillery’s in Northampton County, North Carolina, increasingly scarce.
Born into freedom in 1871, Tillery’s great-great-grandfather became the first farm owner in his family. Hog farming in North Carolina dates back to Colonial times, so the farm included pigs from the outset as well as crops like cotton, soybeans, peanuts, and corn. Across generations, the family resisted “this notion of moving away from farming to make more money in town… or wanting to get a more white-collar job,” says Tillery, who, as the
The full Senate easily confirmed the nomination of Tom Vilsack to serve as secretary of agriculture and lead the USDA under the Biden administration. The bipartisan vote of 92-7 reflected a similar broad bipartisan support across party lines seen during his nomination hearing held Feb. 2.
Upon confirmation, Vilsack released a statement noting he is grateful to serve in the Biden-Harris administration and thanked the Senate for their show of support.
“I look forward to leading the talented, dedicated team at the Department of Agriculture. We’re going to be a USDA that represents and serves all Americans,” Vilsack says. “We have a lot of work ahead of us to contain the pandemic, transform America’s food system, create fairer markets for producers, ensure equity and root out systemic barriers, develop new income opportunities with climate smart practices, increase access to healthy and nutritious food, and make historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy in rural
To improve the performance of our website, show the most relevant news products and targeted advertising, we collect technical impersonal information about you, including through the tools of our partners. You can find a detailed description of how we use your data in our Privacy Policy. For a detailed description of the technologies, please see the Cookie and Automatic Logging Policy.
By clicking on the Accept & Close button, you provide your explicit consent to the processing of your data to achieve the above goal.
You can withdraw your consent using the method specified in the Privacy Policy.
Accept & Close
Sputnik International