HEAL Food Alliance

2021 School of Political Leadership

Team: Cultivate Charlottesville - Land, Liberate, Reparate

Richard Morris

Richard Morris' headshot

Urban Agriculture Collective Farm and Foodroots Program Director, Cultivate Charlottesville

America is at a crossroads. We stand, at once, a step away from a reawakening to equity, or a final passage into darkness. I can think of no better time in my life to do as John Lewis said and “make some noise…” The SoPL is going to help us make that noise.

Richard on what SoPL means to him

Meet Richard

Richard grew up in a poor and working-class Black neighborhood in the 1960s and ‘70s where he was exposed to a myriad of systemic inequities and the strategies to overcome them. “The social gears of my neighborhood turned on the village model, where the haves helped out the have-nots.”


He earned a degree in graphic design from Arizona State University and went on to become an instructor of design. For over three decades, Richard has worked across the healthcare, education, aerospace, and financial industries as a graphic and software designer/developer, teacher and manager. In that time, he has always maintained a garden of one sort or another. In 2005, he completed a Summer internship on a family farm, which has led him to his current role in urban farming.