This story was originally published by High Country News in partnership with Capital B News.
Like thousands of other Black Americans, Tiffany Hawkins’ grandparents, Earnest and Mattie Lee Johnson, left the Jim Crow South in the 1950s to pick cotton in Arizona’s desert.
Many sought opportunities in cities like Chicago and Detroit, but the Johnsons chose Arizona, where their lives and those of their children — including Hawkins’ mother, Arlene — remained deeply rooted in the rhythms of rural life. Their backyard garden was the heart of their home in Phoenix, with its grapevines curling along the fence, an orange tree heavy with fruit, the rich, loamy soil Earnest turned with practiced hands…