Here is another addition to our ongoing series about food rebels. Today we talk about the legacy of those who created food cooperatives for lower caste communities in New York City and Calvin L. Walton collaborated with farmers, truckers, and co-op operators. A food rebel is a individual or group dedicated to creating and maintaining successful food systems (produce, process, distribute, prepare, consume and dispose of food waste) and food sovereignty for traditionally marginalized communities. Food rebel businesses challenge oppressive dominate caste capitalism within the food industry and American society at large; their businesses support lower caste food systems. In 1971 4000 members of Harlem’s lower caste joined a food cooperative under the name of the Harlem River consumers cooperative. They opened a store at 147 Street and 7th Ave. in Harlem. The cooperative planned to open another store in Harlem at 118th St. and Fifth Avenue and a store in Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. Despite opposition from large numbers of southern dominant caste owned and operated trucking companies, in 1972 the Interstate Commerce Commission granted the Afro Urban Transportation Inc., (AUT) contract carrier status. The distinction permitted it to conduct interstate commerce including shipping produce from African American lower caste owned southern farms to lower caste food cooperatives in northern cities. Calvin L. Walton served as the founder and president of the AUT. The trucking consortium had offices in Harlem and the Bronx. AUT had been a subsidiary of Greater Horizons Inc., the profit generating arm of the Independent Truckers League, a trade association of 300 owned and operated African-American truck drivers from Cleveland, New Orleans, and New York. More on Walton forthcoming.