Shorlette Ammons

Shorlette Ammons is a native of Mount Olive, North Carolina, where she grew up in a large family of farmworkers, cooks, and storytellers. She is a former children’s librarian, with a Masters of Library Science (MLS) degree from North Carolina Central University in Durham, NC.

Shorlette currently serves as Equity in Food Systems Coordinator, Extension Associate with the ​Center for Environmental Farming Systems at NC State University in Raleigh, NC, although her work is statewide/regional with participation in some national networks. She works as a part of the ​Community Food Strategies team, which supports and uplifts the efforts of food councils around the state. Shorlette leads the ​CEFS CORE (Committee on Racial Equity) team where she coordinates and facilitates racial equity trainings and ongoing learning sessions, guest lectures and develops curriculum and strategic tools to address food insecurity and other food systems disparities through the lens of structural racism and serves as a member of the Community Food Strategies team. She was selected as the ​Center for Social Inclusion’s 2013 Food and Racial Equity Fellow (now the Maya Wiley Fellowship), releasing a policy brief, ​Shining a Light in Dark Places​, which is a series of interviews of southern Black and Latinx Women of Color working in the food system resulting in policy recommendations and long-term solutions for creating a more equitable food system.

In her work and her daily life, she seeks to lift up and be informed by familial ancestors like her grandparents, Grandma Adell and Grandaddy Rasper, her daddy June, her aunt Annette and cousin Brandon, as well as freedom fighters like Fannie Lou Hamer. She has a teenage daughter, now in college and a sweet pup named Lady. They all call the Bull City of Durham, NC home.