After violence struck her family, Chantel Johnson-Walker ’10 found solace in nature.
When Chantel Johnson-Walker ’10 founded Sunrising Farms with her husband, Antwon, the couple knew they’d chosen a rough road. They were endeavoring to do something fewer and fewer Black Americans are: due to factors from racist violence to discrimination by lending institutions and even the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Black farm ownership has plummeted, from 925,000 in 1920 to below 40,000 today. But while their presence on these three acres in central North Carolina is a story of Black resilience, it’s also a testament to the healing power of nature in Johnson-Walker’s own life.
Born and raised on the southeast side of Chicago, Johnson-Walker came to Carleton on a scholarship but struggled. “It was hard as a Black student, as an urban student. I wasn’t academically prepared—at all.” But with help from the student support programs Posse and TRIO, she graduated with a history degree. She set off for the University of Washington in Seattle to earn her Masters in Social Work and then started her career. Then a volley of bullets changed the trajectory of her life.
On May 20, 2015, her brother Richie, the youngest of five siblings, was shot and left paralyzed. He died 15 months later. Too depressed to work, Johnson-Walker went on leave from her job. “I felt like I did everything,” she recalls. “I got good grades. I went to a good school. I tried to move my brother, I tried to give him money, I tried to help him make better decisions, but nothing I did could counter some of the systemic issues in our community.”
In the end, she came to a realization: “I just need to provide for myself.” So she moved to North Carolina to homestead. She bounced from place to place, working odd jobs. She learned how to make her own deodorant and laundry detergent, she grew vegetables, and eventually she started raising chickens. “When I got my first egg, I was like, ‘This is amazing. Look what we did, me, Mother Earth, and the chickens together! Now we’re providing for ourselves.’”
More, she started to feel better.“ I remember going out there early in the morning, before work, and it felt so good,” she remembers. “I didn’t want to go in to work. I wanted to be free like the chickens.”
She started a farm called Off Grid in Color, but had trouble acquiring land of her own. In 2020, she met Antwon, who was running a farm called Timbuktu House in Florida. They soon started a family, and in 2023 purchased land in Franklinville and opened Sunrising Farms, an operation that today has around 500 animals, a mix of pigs, hens, and turkeys. While they follow agroecology principles—free-range, non-GMO feed, “and lots of love and care”—Johnson-Walker views sustainability through a more expansive lens: as being mindful about our relationship with the Earth, living in gratitude, and involving the community.
She admits it’s not been easy. “We are a Black farm. We’re not shy about that,” Walker-Johnson says. “To be a Black farmer in America is very hard. It’s very, very stressful. There are a lot of equity issues around that.”
But her family of five is thriving. Antwon takes the lead on farming, while Chantel works full-time as a group therapist specializing in OCD and complex anxiety. She sees a future where the two areas are increasingly interwoven. “My goal is to use the farm as a safe haven. My mission is very simple: to encourage people to take steps towards self-sufficiency, and that could mean practicing mindfulness or connecting with nature. I want people to know: you have everything you need to accomplish your dreams. I want nature to be the kind of inspiration, a place for healing, that it was for me.”