“There is nothing new under the sun- but there are new suns.” - Octavia E. Butler
As February comes to a close, we reflect on the boundless ways Black people have shaped this country- its culture, its cities, its foodways, and its agricultural systems, while continuing to imagine and build liberated futures. We honor Black brilliance not only in history, but in the influence and evolving power within our daily lives. Afro-Futurism, in particular, has lit bold pathways of collective resilience and possibility.
Among the many visionaries who guide us, we uplift Octavia Butler, whose imagination and clarity continue to shape movements for liberation. We are so moved by her work that we named our organization and primary grant program after her novel Wild Seed. Her writing calls us to embrace change, claim our agency, and trust in the strength forged through generations of survival and adaptation. She reminds us that our struggles have gifted us the ability to shape the future rather than be shaped by it.
We see ourselves within a greater ecosystem of actors that have been deeply moved by this philosophy embedded in Butler’s writing. With that in mind, we want to share a list of amazing projects by some of the wild seeds and earth seeds inspired by Butler’s bold vision. Together, we carry the power to resist, to root, and to flourish.
Wildseeds Fund (National): Founded in 2012, a movement-led participatory grantmaking fund that advances frontline organizations and narratives that build power and embolden transformative change to our food and agricultural systems through climate, land and labor justice.
The Wild Seed Collective (Los Angeles, CA): Founded in 2024, a new and emerging Los Angeles–based organization designed to support, fund, and grow women-owned businesses. Their work centers on providing capital, capacity building, and networking, grounded in principles of equity, justice, and shared lived experience as Black women and women of color.
WILDSEED Community Farm & Healing Village (Millerton, NY): Founded in 2015, a BIPOC-centered regenerative community farm, healing sanctuary, and land-based justice project growing food, medicine, and communal infrastructure.
Wild Seed Liberation Land (National): An organization dedicated to supporting Black and Indigenous healers, educators, and activists through land- and spirit-based liberation, restorative programs, and community wellness initiatives.
Earthseed Farm (Sonoma County, CA): Founded in 2021, a 14-acre solar-powered organic permaculture farm and orchard grounded in Afro-Indigenous land stewardship.
Earthseed Land Collective (Durham, NC): Founded in 2012, a land collective formed by farmers of color and justice organizers focused on cooperative land-based living and liberation.
Earthseed Co-op (Chicago, IL): Founded in 2022, a worker-owned garden installation and landscaping collective rooted in land stewardship and food justice.
*Octavia Butler had a joyful and empathetic connection to animals. Her earliest writing featured an equine heroine, Silver Star. Images feature Butler with one of her favorite animals, followed by her own 1958 childhood illustration of the characters, Silver Star and friend Rocket, from one of her earliest fiction stories.
Esperanza was raised in California with roots in the Bay Area, Central Valley and Tuolumne mountains. She is an Indigenous descendant of the Caxcan of the Nahua Nation of Northern Mexico and Southwest U.S. She has worked with nonprofits for nearly 30 years with an emphasis in leadership, systemic change, and policy advocacy. Her priority is to use the power of movement-led investments, cultural organizing and storytelling to strengthen the network of land-based practitioners who are fostering political leadership and community economic power through the lens of ancestral ecological practice. As Executive Director of Wildseeds Fund, a movement-led participatory grantmaker, Esperanza is committed to community-controlled capital structures, narrative shift and emboldening transformative food and agricultural systems change.