Charley Calls for Black Farmers to Unite

Charley Bordelon has been in St. Josephine Parish for only a couple of months, and already she's leaving a profound mark on the community.

The Landrys are the most powerful family in the parish. Their property surrounds the Bordelons, and they've done nothing to welcome Charley or her siblings to the area. In fact, the Landrys have been set on buying the Bordelon farm ever since Charley's father, Ernest, passed away, for reasons that only recently became clear to Charley, Nova and Ralph Angel: The Landry family was forced to part with the parcel now owned by the Bordelons shortly after the Civil War—having once kept the ancestors of the Bordelons as slaves.

Fed up with business as usual, Charley sees a new day. She wants to run her own sugarcane processing plant, circumventing the need to work with the Landrys. To do so, however, she needs other black farmers in the area to join her movement. Here, she makes a powerful case for solidarity that could forever shift the balance of power in St. Josephine Parish.