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>> Lyles Station in its zenith had over 800 families here.
People were here, like, 100 years
even before it became Lyles Station.
So it was a colony, and it was an area where the Blacks
had came and settled and survived,
and, you know, made a way for theirselves.
It's a farming community.
Even where we are at right now was a part of Lyles Station,
because a man named Thomas Cole owned thousands
and thousands of acres that went all the way to Mount Carmel.
He owned it, and he was a Black man.
When I grew up in Lyles Station,
it was a whole lot of family and friends
and we all went to Wayman Chapel Church,
which was the center of Lyles Station.
We would have picnics.
We would have barbecues.
We would have fish fries.
And Lyles Station, right now, is the remnants of what it was.
Our part of the family, we've always worked the ground.
What it was then, it was farming,
but it was also homesteading.
My father was recognized -- is recognized as one of
the last remaining African American farmers farming land
that's been in their family since pre-Civil War.
It's been passed down for generation and generation,
and he's farming that still.
Today is the next generation, which is my son,
who has decided that he wants to do the produce farming.
>> You know, there's a lot of things that you think
that you might want to do growing up,
and farming never was a thought of mine at all.
Around 2016, when my grandfather was getting acknowledged
and Lyles Station, a bell kind of rung in my head,
or a lightbulb as you could say,
just kind of went off and was, like, you know,
my grandpa is the last one that they are saying in our family.
So I just, like, you know, thought
it would have been easy at the time.
Like, hey, I can grow a garden.
Hey, I can sell some fresh produce.
Not really knowing what it all took at the time,
just had an idea and just ran with it, really.
>> We're actually on what's called on Produce Alley,
and there's other produce stands on down the road.
So this is called the Gibson County's Produce Alley.
We do food giveaways.
So what we do is we go into the community,
partner with organizations such as Young and Established,
which works with inner city youth and give them programs.
We are doing a program with them to where we are giving
away a fresh local produce bag.
You know, those are the most important seeds
that I feel like I plant, is that --
is that seed of sustainability, that seed of opportunity.
We have hooked up with other Black farmers.
We did farmer's markets in the underserved areas.
In Evansville, we've hooked up with the churches
that's in the underserved area, and we do youth programs.
With those youth programs, some of them we take them
from seed, all the way to market,
to canning and preserving.
So we teach them how to grow the food.
We educate them about food.
We educate them on the opportunities
that agriculture can bring to them,
because for them, agriculture is great, great grandpa
or some old man sitting on a tractor making dust.
Agriculture is so much more than farming.
And that's what we try to plant those seeds.
>> My grandpa, he wants to see the best for me.
So he encourages me.
He gives me a lot of information to help me
to be successful out here, because he's done it before too.
He's helped his brothers.
So he definitely gives me a lot of words of encouragement.
He probably won't say it, but I'm pretty sure
he enjoys to see me out here.
>> You need to understand your roots, right?
For me, I recognized that Black farming is becoming extinct.
And I recognized the good life I had by living on a farm.
The people here worked, and they had their own community,
and, to me, it's important for people to know, you know?
And it's important for people to get to come back home,
you know, at some point in time, you know,
because there's so much joy in the people coming.
And I guess for me, my joy comes from everybody else's joy.