“Uncle Bob” Johnson of Port Wentworth’s Promised Land Farms goes home
Tucked behind a sea of empty warehouses off Monteith Road in Port Wentworth is the Promised Land.
The Promised Land is the name of a family farm ― the dream of brothers Robert and William Johnson, when they brought 31 acres upon returning from the Vietnam War. It is one of only a few black-owned farms in Georgia and one of only 28,700 in the U.S.
On July 13, brother Robert “Unclde Bob” Johnson passed away, leaving a hole both in his family and the Port Wentworth community. During a recent city council meeting, the city read a proclamation in his honor.
“Most of us refer to him as Uncle Bob,” said Mayor Pro Tem Gabrielle Nelson. “If you are new to the community, you may not know him as anything, but you will know his truck. You will know his farm. He’s been a staple in this community for longer than many of us have been in the world.”
Born in 1946, Uncle Bob graduated from Effingham County’s Springfield High School in 1967 before joining the United States Army as a flight engineer. He had a career in the army until 1989, the year he began his farm. His granddaughter, Normica Miller Al-Kush, was aged 6.
Robert “Uncle Bob” Johnson uses a hoe to clear some weeds from his filed at Promised Land Farm in Monteith.
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“This was Papa’s world and it became our world,” Al-Kush said. “For me and my cousins, we had a rich childhood. We got to experience what it’s like to go out and pick peaches and watermelons and all of those things. A lot of people don’t get to be in nature like that, so it’s nice to have had that opportunity. It’s definitely bittersweet, because Papa’s not suffering anymore, and the last year was tough. But this land is everything ― it’s a blessing, and his legacy.”
Even as his health declined, his sister, Flossie Mae White, said that every day, right after dialysis, he’d be right to the farm, telling her what to do, how to do it, when to do it.
“He never stopped,” White said. “He wasn’t able to do things down here, but he made sure they got done. This was his home right here. He would be here every day, all day if he could. He was dedicated to The Promised Land.”
Being one of the only Black-owned farms in the U.S. was something that Al-Kush, now majoring in environmental science, began to see the importance of only as she got older, she said. Black farmers in America faced racial discrimination in agriculture, exclusion from relief programs and more, slashing the number of Black-owned farms to 2% across the country by 2019, according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Families in the Monteith and Meinhard communities, including the Johnsons, faced the prospect of being erased as industrialization and the development of warehouses came knocking on their front door.
The future for the farm is uncertain, but going forward, Uncle Bob’s family wants to honor him.
“I have no idea what we’re going to do, but whatever we do we just have to honor him,” Al-Kush said. “Him and Uncle Bill, they paved the way for this land, our family, and we’re going to honor that.”
Destini Ambus is the general assignment reporter for Chatham County municipalities for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach her at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Port Wentworth remembers “Uncle Bob” Johnson of Promised Land Farms
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