Homemade fried chicken cooking in a skillet
In 1960, Lonnie King, Julian Bond, Herschelle Sullivan, Carolyn Long, Joseph Pierce, and others Black students from the Atlanta University Center (AUC) organized what they called the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR). They recruited students, trained them in non-violence strategy, and then moved on several segregated Atlanta lunch counters in protest including Rich’s a flagship department store in downtown Atlanta. Atlanta officials arrested them and while they remained in jail their parents gathered at Paschal’s restaurant. We “would keep the restaurant open all night because their families would come to Paschal's to wait until they had been released from jail,” remembers one of the Paschal brothers who owned the business. Thus when they made bail, the members of the COAHR went straight to Paschal’s where the restaurant owners feed them and their families for free. Congressman John Lewis, from Atlanta, a former member of SNCC, recalls that when the food was not free at Paschal’s during the sit-in movements, you could still get a plate of fried chicken, a wedge of corn bread, candied yams, and some greens for the price of a poor man’s feast--a dollar and some change.
Fried Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
1 chicken
Salt and pepper
Pancake flour
Lard
Butter (optional)
1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
Directions
Cut up chicken. Sprinkle pancake flour with salt and pepper over chicken. Fry chicken in hot lard until golden brown. When done, remove excess lard from skillet and place 2 tablespoons of pancake flour. Let brown in skillet. Do not let become dry. As soon as it is brown add about 1 quart of water. Simmer for about 5 minutes. Season to taste, place chicken in gravy and cover. Let simmer for about 15 minutes. For a special taste, add butter or either a teaspoon of sugar to gravy.
The Baltimore Afro-American, Aug 28, 1965
