ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the historical and cultural significance of harvest festivals, focusing on the Purple Hull Pea Festival in Shankleville, Texas. It described the aftermath of the abolition of slavery in the United States and the acquisition of land by freedpeople. This is partly done through the story of Jim and Winnie Shankle, who eventually founded the freedom colony of Shankleville. The role of the land, not just for survival through food production but as a space of agency and dignity, is discussed. The development of the Texas Purple Hull Pea Festival is then discussed, providing the history of its establishment, a description of its activities, and the role of the Purple Hull Pea within the event as a crop brought to the United States by slaves from Africa. The author then explores in more depth the relationship between these events and agricultural marronage, psychic marronage, Black autonomy, and landed Blackness, showing the symbolic importance of the festival in the formation of autonomous Black spaces. The present and future of the festival are discussed in terms of contemporary pressure from demographic and economic shifts, along with the out-migration of youth from the community, concluding how the symbolic power of the festival not only is restricted to the past of African American cultural resilience but also is a celebration and reinforcement of this today.
