Enslaved Africans braided grains of rice into their hair.

Okra seeds were tucked into pockets.

Many of the foods we eat today you may have thought were American

are actually native to Africa and helped our people survive.

This is too many black history, what you didn't learn in school.

The diaspora's cherished crops like yam, plantain, sweet potato, watermelon, okra, black-eye peas, and rice are foods we carried across the Atlantic.

Alongside the enslaved, these indigenous food staples were cargo too

and they helped sustain our people as their captors carried them into the unknown.

Beyond sustenance, women quietly resisted by carrying rice seeds in their hair

unbeknownst to enslavers. Once in the Americas, we adapted.

We also adapted the crops we've always known, finding alternative ways to grow them in unfamiliar soil. Rice growing thrived in the

U.S. South. Plantain flourished in the tropical conditions of the Caribbean. Black Eye Peas found a home in Brazil. We carried these foods, but they also

carried us. And today we're still benefiting from these nutrient-dense staples and the delicious ways we serve them, whether new or traditional.

A medley of tomatoes, sausage, and rice makes up the red rice eaten in South Carolina.

Un-Wipe plantain with garlic and pork cracklings is called mofungo in Puerto Rico.

A karajé, a fritter made with mashed black-eyed peas and cooked in palm oil is one of

Brazil's most famous street foods. Like our people, our methods of preparing and consuming these foods differ, but the roots have stayed the same.

As our ancestors' seeds did, we survived the journey, were planted elsewhere and still found beautiful new ways to bloom.

In order to move towards the future you've got to look to the past.

This has been two minute black history a podcast by Push Black. If you enjoyed this

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subscribe to our podcast. Together, let's celebrate and honor the legacy of black history.

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