2022 John Egerton Prize Winner: Imani Black
Imani Black is working to nurture a more diverse and inclusive aquaculture industry, ensuring that people of color are included in conversations around aquaculture and honoring the historic contributions of African Americans on the Chesapeake Bay.
Black is an African American oyster farmer and faculty research assistant at the University of Maryland’s Horn Point Laboratory. Born and raised on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, she comes from a family of watermen that dates back more than two centuries. During college at Old Dominion University, she interned for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, beginning her work in oyster restoration and shellfish aquaculture. For more than two years, she was a lead technician at the first privately-owned hatchery in Maryland. Today, she is a graduate research assistant at the University of Maryland’s Horn Point Laboratory.
In 2020, Black founded the nonprofit organization Minorities in Aquaculture (MIA), which aims to educate minority women about the environmental benefits provided by local and global aquaculture in order to promote a more diverse, inclusive aquaculture industry. MIA offers live and virtual workshops, training, and academic and professional mentoring, in addition to a paid internship initiative to provide opportunities free of financial barriers. The organization also offers mini-grants for women of color beginning careers in aquaculture.
The John Egerton Prize, endowed by SFA member contributions, awards $5,000 each year. To share the story of the Egerton Prize winner, SFA also produces a film. The 2022 film, Imani Black: Minorities in Aquaculture, directed by Caroline J. Phillips, premiered on October 15 via a partnership with the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, Tennessee. (John Egerton, a founder of the SFA, was also a founder of the Southern Festival of Books.)
John Egerton Prize winners live or work in the American South, exhibit exceptional creativity, apply the rubric of food and drink to their work, and show the potential to make a genuine difference in one or more fields.
Winners are elected by a jury that includes:
—W. Ralph Eubanks, author and teacher, Washington, DC and Oxford, MS
—Edward Lee, chef and nonprofit leader, Louisville, KY
—Alison Bethel McKenzie, journalist and media trainer, Washington, DC
—John Simpkins, nonprofit leader, Durham, NC
—Judith Winfrey, farmer and entrepreneur, Atlanta, GA
Photo by Jimell Greene.
