Here is a memory from my childhood in celebration of Collard Green week. My mother Margaret Opie had been a tireless Hudson Valley based grass roots organizer for movements like the international ones to free political prisoner Nelson Mandela and ending apartheid in South Africa. Mom would be cooking food and getting on the phone to coordinate the food others would bring to one of her meetings or events. Fried chicken, corn bread, and collard greens and pies and cakes for desert is in part what fueled the revolution. The food helped participants to do the necessary work at meetings and demonstrations to advance progressive movements such as the African National Congress' goal of the abolition of apartheid.
