Gullah Heritage Trail Tours

09/12/2026

09/12/2026

Thomas Monroe Campbell drove a wagon full of farm tools down the back roads of Alabama and changed rural life for thousands of Black families. 🐴 In 1906 he became the first Black cooperative extension agent in the entire United States, hired out of Tuskegee Institute to carry practical knowledge straight to the people who needed it most.

His classroom was a mule-drawn wagon called the Jesup Wagon, a movable school outfitted with a plow, a cream separator, seed, and simple demonstration tools. Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver helped design the idea, and Campbell made it roll. He drove from farm to farm, stopping at rail fences and front yards to show families better ways to plant, to raise livestock, to can vegetables, and to care for the soil that so many of them worked without ever owning. 🌱

For Black farmers locked out of banks, universities, and fair markets, Campbell's wagon was a rare open door. He met people where they stood, in the field, in the language of everyday work, and he treated sharecroppers and landowners alike with dignity. Over a long career he helped countless families squeeze more food, more health, and more hope out of hard ground.

This image is a respectful reconstruction, not a real photograph, but the mission it shows built real lives. Knowledge, carried by hand down a dusty road, to people the rest of the country had written off.

We talk a lot about who tore Alabama down. We should talk more about who built it up. Thomas Monroe Campbell built it one farm, one family, one lesson at a time, and the harvest of that work fed generations. 🌾

09/12/2026

For the Gullah-Geechee community, land is culture, family legacy, economic foundation and the right to remain.

Circulating land management ordinance proposals place more restrictive zoning regulations in the very districts where Gullah land is concentrated, risking depriving families of economic opportunity. Read more: https://bit.ly/3SUPGhp

09/12/2026

The Trump administration wants a feel-good version of American history. That is not a feature of a democratic system

09/12/2026

Robert Smalls was born enslaved and became a sea captain, a hero, a U.S Congressman, and purchased the house where he and his mother had originally been enslaved. He died there on February 23, 1915, and held the largest funeral in its entire history.

His story 👉 bit.ly/MrRobertSmalls

09/09/2026