Dr. Najmah Thomas and Nature Gaston
Roots, Farmacy & Mother Herb
Najmah Dr. Najmah Thomas is a young woman with lots of energy. She is a professor at University of South Carolina Beaufort in the Public Health and Human Services Program and the African American Studies minor. However, her first love is the family farm. Her parents, Bertha Mae and Alphonia, established the Earth People Farms and way of life in the late ‘70s on St. Helena Island, and their children, Najamah, Glen, and Nature, are carrying on the ways of the African Gullah/Geechee heritage.
Najmah shared that her parents did not go to regular doctors if they were sick. They had knowledge of and experience with plants, trees, and herbs growing right on their property and knew which ones to use for various ailments. Today the siblings have a new wooden structure, called the EP Farmacy, which is well stocked with drying plants and small batch bottles of oil, tinctures, bags of tea, T-shirts, and charts to guide customers back to the old ways of maintaining good health. Of course, there is a disclaimer that these remedies, while used for generations, have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.