Feeding the Revolution in Albany, Georiga
Over 200 people are shown as they were arrested in Albany, Georgia, Courtesy of the Library of Congress
The balance of the senate hangs on senate races in Georgia. In 1961 several women in Albany Georgia contributed to the civil rights movement there by providing food to folks peacefully protesting against the Jim Crow policies of Albany Police Chief Laurie Pritchett. Pritchett jailed Ralph Abernathy, MLK, and other leaders of the movement in Albany in deplorable conditions including refusing to feed them. Local black women heard about the starving political prisoners and began feeding them some good down home food like fried chicken and biscuits with all the fixings and some “even churned a couple of quarts of homemade ice cream for us,” says Ralph Abernathy. Speaking of the movement and food in 1963, activist and comedian Dick Gregory writes, “That was some mighty horrible food [prison officials] were giving us [demonstrators] over there. First couple of days, it taste bad and look bad and after that it tasted like home cooking. Matter of fact, it got so good the third day that I asked one of the guards for the recipe.
