Will Patterson will be honored with a moment of silence and video tribute during Friday s Champaign Urbana Schools Foundation distinguished alumni gala.
Ms. Cecile Keaton Bryant and Ms. Earnestine Keaton on their family farm.
It’s hard enough to keep a small family farm going. But add to that the challenges of systemic and environmental racism and the Keatons’ accomplishment becomes even less likely. But it’s their commitment to keeping their land, farming it, and teaching the next generation that has protected their family legacy.
Less than 30 miles inland from the coast, in rural, southeastern North Carolina, there sits a 40-acre tract of land that has been in the Keaton family for generations. The ancestral connection goes back more than a century, to a time when their great-great-grandparents left slavery behind.