Contemporary Black Food Justice and Female Food Activists

Introduction

Food justice movements of the 20th century – and the women who spearheaded them – continue to have a large impact on other Black food justice initiatives. Even before the turn of the century, other communities and organizations were taking inspiration from Black food activists; The Young Lords Organization, a Party committed to the self-determination and liberation of Puerto Ricans, was founded in the late 1960s after direct inspiration from the Black Panther Party.¹ Similar to the Panthers, the Young Lords established a variety of mutual aid initiatives including a free-breakfast program Here, Party members (particularly female members) could deeply engage with the surrounding community (mainly women and children).² 

Similarly, despite the US government making continuous efforts to shut down the BPP, the BPP’s breakfast programs in California pressured the Reagan administration to implement a free state breakfast program. Even further, the model of the BPP’s breakfast program is followed by all federal school breakfast programs in public schools today.³

In the 21st century, there are greater numbers of individuals engaging with food justice initiatives, particularly as the pandemic has amplified economic disparity and chronic food insecurity. Furthermore, with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in recent years, people are becoming more aware of the intersections between food justice and Black lives.

This section works to highlight BIPOC women involved in contemporary food justice movements and how their work relates to that of the BPP, Fannie Lou Hamer, and other 20th century events.

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Analysis

Leah Penniman and the Soul Fire Farm 

Leah Penniman is the co-founder and director of Soul Fire Farm, a community farm located in Petersburg, NY.⁴ Penniman and her husband lived on the South End of Albany —an area classified as a “food desert” — and struggled to find easily accessible fresh food for their family.⁵

However, Penniman and her partner had a wealth of farming experience between them, and after requests from neighbors for a community farm, they bought some land and established Soul Fire Farm in 2010. Membership is based on a pay-what-you-can scale, and once a week during the 20 weeks of the harvest season, members have fresh food delivered directly to their doorsteps.⁶ 

Soul Fire Farm has various initiatives to increase community engagement with agriculture and food systems. Three years after its founding, the farm began the Youth Food Justice Program. With this project, Albany youth could choose to complete on-farm training instead of juvenile sentencing.⁷ Young people have the opportunity to connect with their ancestors through the land, and Soul Fire Farm aims to end the school-to-prison pipeline that exists within the Black community.⁸ 

The farm also hosts “Ask a Sista Farmer,” a weekly Q and A session on Instagram Live where followers can ask Black female farmers questions about agriculture and gardening.⁹ This free programming allows for the farm to reach individuals outside of the local community and educate a broader audience on food justice and land usage. 

One of Soul Fire’s more recent initiatives was created during the peak of the pandemic. Furthering their engagement with communities outside of upstate New York, the farm began working with marginalized individuals in cities. They helped them plant gardens and made fresh food more accessible. Leah Penniman said the program ultimately was “for our neighbors to reclaim their food sovereignty in a time of extreme food scarcity.”¹⁰

Similar to the Freedom Farm Cooperative, Soul Fire Farm operates with the understanding that hunger has been used to oppress and marginalize BIPOC communities for centuries. Leah Penniman even lists Fannie Lou Hamer and other 20th-century food activists as inspirations for her work and the farm’s initiatives.¹¹

Community Fridge 120 

The pandemic also saw the creation of smaller mutual aid programs throughout American cities. Especially here in New York, free “community fridges” began to emerge in various neighborhoods around February 2020. The fridges reduce food waste by sourcing its contents from restaurants, supermarkets, and other local organizations that have excess (and still fresh) food. The fridges also work to reduce food insecurity in the surrounding communities, as anyone can take and share the ingredients when they need them.¹²

The refrigerators are often plugged into delis or residential buildings and since community fridges are mutual aid initiatives and there is no sole power policing them, neighbors hold each other accountable for maintaining and respecting the fridges.¹³ 

Community Fridge 120 (located on West 120th Street) was the second established community fridge in Manhattan. Chef Jazmin Johnson founded it during the peak of the pandemic, working to raise funds and eventually receiving a donated refrigerator.¹⁴ 

Before serving as Dalton’s Teaching Kitchen Coordinator, Johnson worked with Wellness in the Schools, a non-profit dedicated to promoting healthy and sustainable eating in NYC public schools. She specifically worked with children at a K-5 school in the Bronx, teaching them about introducing fresh foods into their diets and daily lives.¹⁵

Johnson views Community Fridge 120 as an extension of her work with Wellness in the Schools.¹⁶ The fridge not only provides accessibility to fresh food but also educates residents on how to incorporate healthy food into their lifestyles. 

With a current total of 153 in NYC, community fridges are becoming increasingly prevalent in conversations about solving food insecurity and hunger.¹⁷ While soup kitchens and pantries are large operations that provide food security, they often only distribute canned goods that lack nutritional value. Thus, these projects unintentionally contribute to poor health and do not address the systemic roots of food insecurity. Contrastingly, the fridges more effectively address the root causes of food insecurity by providing healthy food options and placing the means of production and distribution in the hands of historically marginalized people.¹⁸

Similar to the work of Fannie Lou Hamer and the Black Panthers, Johnson and the other volunteers with Community Fridge 120 do more than just provide their neighbors with food. They respond directly to the needs and wants of BIPOC, provide education and employment, and work to improve the overall health of their communities. These initiatives resist systemic oppression and chronic hunger in Black communities, making the work of the fridge deeply political. In the words of Jazmin Johnson, “For me personally, protesting is scary. But I know how to feed people… and how to empower people through food. That’s ultimately what my mission is.”¹⁹ 

Chef Gillian Clark

21st-century resistance and food activism also present themselves as the Black woman’s continued struggle against the mammy figure and other stereotypes. A notable example of this is with this work of Chef Gillian Clark, who has boldly reclaimed and refined Aunt Jemima. 

Marcia Chatelain argues that Black women’s cookbooks and culinary literature can provide humanizing perspectives about Black domestic labor.²⁰ She supports this point by referencing Clark’s memoir, Out of the Frying Pan: A Chef’s Memoir of Hot Kitchens, Single Motherhood, and the Family Meal (2007). In the book, Clark describes how she left her marketing job to begin working as a chef. She writes of how she loves the kitchen and views it as a place of comfort, contrasting how the kitchen was forced upon and “intolerable” for previous generations of Black women.²¹ 

Clark opened her first restaurant, Colorado Kitchen, in Washington, D.C. Of particular interest is the bold decor in the space, with images of Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth hung around the dining room and Aunt Jemima’s red bandana used as napkins.²² 

Some customers took deep offense to this — particularly Black patrons — and even refused to sit at tables with mammy photos and decor.²³ However, Clark stood by her design choices, arguing that reclaiming images of Aunt Jemima forces customers to grapple with the dark history of Black women’s domestic labor while understanding that, in contrast, they were currently being served by a multidimensional chef and Black woman.²⁴

While Clark’s work and restaurant garnered much criticism, her memoir further emphasizes that Black women have to continue resisting stereotypes as they perform labor they are passionate about. Reclaiming Aunt Jemima and the mammy stereotype in such a bold manner resists centuries of the Black woman’s identity being defined by someone else and allows for more emphasis on the empowering aspects of Black domestic labor.

Other Contemporary Food Justice Initiatives: 

Tubman House’s Fannie Lou Hamer – Sundiata Acoli Farm in Baltimore, Maryland 

The People’s Kitchen Collective in Oakland, California 

The Black Feminist Project’s Black Joy Farm and Community Food Program