It is in this tradition that I wish to further a dialogue about my project "Where Furrows Run Deep," which documents the plight of the African American farmer.

I started this project while a graduate student at Ohio University in 1999. I initially meant for it to be a visual anthropological account, unemotional and objective, recorded through the methodology of documentary photography. A segment of our culture was disappearing and I felt it important to create visual historical records before that happened.

But as the project evolved, so did I. Though it is still about documenting and reporting, it has become much more to me. I realize now it’s about a shattered American dream seen through the eyes of the black farmer.

As a documentary photojournalist, and as a human being, I found it difficult not to become emotionally involved when I’ve come to know people so intimately. I’ve shared moments of joy and crushing disappointment, their triumphs and their failures.

Through these images, I hope for the audience to make a connection to the people who have opened their lives to me, to become more informed about the plight of the African American farmer, to acknowledge the existence of institutional racism that still pervades our society and to have an honest and open conversation about it. In these tough economic times, many people can likely relate to the physical, emotional and financial struggles of the American family farmer. There is an opportunity to use that commonality of the tenacious American spirit, and to look at the institutional racism that, despite the election of our first African American president, still exists. If the project receives favorable response, a goal would be for a scholarship to be set up for African American college students pursuing agricultural degrees.