The Final Call

Conference aims to plant ‘SEEDs’ to fight violence in Tuskegee

What's your opinion on this article?

SEED Inc. (Students for Education and Economic Development) is a community organization dedicated to educating youth through agriculture and economic development. Photo: Courtesy of SEED Inc.

Hosted by SEED, Inc., the conference entitled, “War On Murder Begins” (WOMB) will convene April 25-28 in Tuskegee.  Nation of Islam Student Minister Dr. Wesley Muhammad and Southern Regional Student Minister Sharrieff Muhammad are scheduled presenters during the four-day event that examine these various topics through art, film and several guest presentations.

SEED Inc. (Students for Education and Economic Development) is a community organization dedicated to educating youth through agriculture and economic development.

Day one of the conference will be held at Booker T. Washington High School and feature “Maafa 21,” a film about the eugenics history of birth control and abortion.  A presentation on “How to Give Birth to a God” will be delivered by Dr. Patina Muhammad.  Macon County, Alabama doulas will offer pregnancy resources to new and future mothers.  Tuskegee University researchers will present their findings on the epidemic of cervical cancer in the Black Belt and discuss household chemicals and environmental factors that may cause cancer.  Amir Muhammad will close the evening with a discussion on “How to Marry a God.”

Day two will be held at the Tuskegee Municipal Complex with presentations on the Flint, Mich., water crisis, a forum on community policing, and a domestic violence panel and much more.

Day three will be held at the Tuskegee University Kellogg Center ballroom and feature an exhibition of the film “Vaxxed” by Dr. Andrew Wakefield and a panel discussion on the allegations of a coverup by the Center for Disease Control regarding certain vaccines. The keynote address on “Understanding the scientific assault on the Black womb” will be delivered by Dr. Wesley Muhammad. 

Local artists will present their work to the community during the conference’s Art Fair, which will also recognize three artists for their work on the War On Murder.  Sunny Star, a marketing company founded by Nile Muhammad, will have a soft-launching of a new Black comic book series for children called “The SLAM Squad.”

“We’re holding the conference because we want to have a conversation on the social determinants of murder,” said Scott Muhammad, who organized the weekend activities with his wife, Erica. “We’ve fallen into such a depraved state that you have to have a conversation before the conversation. We expect to start the healing in our community.”

A highlight on the fourth day will be the Grand Planting of the first Atonement Memorial Garden memorializing victims of murder as part of the atonement process for allowing the community to collapse, said Scott Muhammad.

The garden will be in the Ridgewood community, Tuskegee’s largest public housing complex and site of the SEED Inc. Farm School Program.  SEED (Students for Education and Economic Development) students are the primary builders of the Atonement Memorial Garden.  The Grand Planting of the Atonement Memorial Garden will commence with a tree-planting ceremony where the family of each murder victim will plant a fruit tree in the name of their loved one. These trees will be woven into an espalier fruit tree fence to create a welcoming enclosure of the memorial space.

Tuskegee University’s Golden Voices choir will provide the spiritual tones to accompany the planting. Other memorial pilgrims will be provided with organic seedlings to plant in the garden as an atonement offering.

Resources on dealing with grief will be available that afternoon for bereaved family members.

The idea for SEED Inc., was born out of a 1985 tragedy when high school basketball star Ben Wilson was murdered in the streets of Chicago.

The late Rev. James Bevel and his colleagues prayed about a solution to the increasing violence among young people and determined that proper education and economic development opportunities were the missing elements in these children’s lives. These are the roots of the first SEED organization.

The second generation of SEED was incorporated by Scott and Erica in Alabama in 2010; they currently serve as co-directors of the organization. They have run organic agriculture camps for children since 2001 in Illinois and Alabama.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan visited the SEED Inc., program in 2013. “I was so inspired by what I heard and what I saw. And I see that God has prepared in Brother Scott and his wife and those with him an answer to problems in the inner cities—and not only in the inner cities, but everywhere I’ve gone in the world,” said the Minister after the visit. What you have done with SEED can be multiplied a hundred times, a thousand times,” he added. 

SEED Inc. recognizes the need for communities to control the quality and availability of healthy foods the group assists communities in developing local food systems that maximize the productive capacity of the agricultural community.

For more information on the WOMB Conference and other programs offered by SEED, Inc., and to support their efforts visit seedincorporated.com and visit SEED Inc. on Facebook.