“Pinto bean cake? You mean … an actual cake made from pinto beans?” I gazed wide-eyed at Ammie McRae Jenkins, founder and executive director of the Sandhills Family Heritage Association, waiting for an answer.
We were standing at the organization’s booth at a local community festival. Jenkins was sharing some of the unique recipes found in the cookbook she held, "Soul on Rice: African Influences on American Cooking," by Patricia B. Mitchell.
She flipped to the page, kindly showing me the recipe for the dessert. In this first encounter with the organization, I didn’t know that important heritage recipes like this only scratched the surface of the rich history preserved and shared by the Sandhills Family Heritage Association here in the Fort Liberty region.
With Black History Month in the rearview mirror, there are still plenty of opportunities to continue learning. The Association offers plenty of opportunities to learn and engage local African American history all throughout the year.
The Sandhills Family Heritage Association started long before it incorporated in 2001. “It started while I was doing family research,” Jenkins said. “I ended up talking with different people in the community, and because my family had lost their land, I was surprised to hear that there were many people in the community who were losing their land [too].”
After engaging with civic leaders on the issue, Jenkins and the others decided to organize an association. Many people showed up to the first meeting at Jenkins’ church, and they soon realized creating the opportunity to talk openly about family land could make a difference.
“This organization was a place where people that had the same concerns about what was going on in their community would have a place where they could talk and plan,” Jenkins said. “When you lose your land, you are losing your ability to take care of yourself. We realized that we couldn’t just focus on one area, we had to use what I would say is a holistic approach to solve some of those problems.”
The “volunteer-fueled” association has since created programs centered on the idea of H.O.P.E., or Heritage, Outreach, Preservation of Land and Resources and Economic Self-Sufficiency. According to the organization’s website, the association develops “its core programs around the steady and consistent idea of Hope running through the history of African-Americans in the N.C. Sandhills.”
The organization emphasizes what’s called an “asset-based approach” to community development. Rather than focus efforts on problems and challenges, the organization creates opportunities by building upon the strengths, opportunities, resources and gifts of people, groups and places.
Jenkins and Janet Brower, the organization’s board chairwoman, emphasize that military and long-time residents of Cumberland County and the surrounding areas are welcome to engage in a variety of ways.
“For those people who want to engage the organization, we welcome them,” Jenkins said. “Because we use a holistic approach in the work we do, I think people can find a place where they can fit in in almost any of these areas where we do work.”
Fort Liberty and surrounding area residents can participate in cultural events, youth programs, health programs, land preservation and agriculture programs, historic restoration projects and more.
The Association leads Heritage Tours and reenactments about the “lifestyles, livelihoods, land-based activities, and stories of African-American families and communities dating back to slavery.”
“If you don’t know your history, you don’t know how you got to where you are … We have a lot of rich history here,” Jenkins said.
Groups, families and individuals can request tours on a variety of topics located around the area, including some focused on subjects such as historic churches, sacred landscapes, family farms, naval stores, the historic Market House, a military museum tour and more. Tours run from April through October.
Whether it’s creating opportunities to taste treasured recipes like pinto bean cake, hosting programs or preserving history, the Sandhills Family Heritage Association staff and volunteers focus on the good.
“We decided to focus on the [good things] of the community and build the organization on the assets within the community," Jenkins said. "We decided that, 'Hey, if we can work together, we can make a difference' — and we have.”
HOW TO GET INVOLVED:
