All in Food and Social Movements

Feeding the Revolution in Mississippi

The pace of the civil rights movement accelerated with the return of World War II soldiers like Medger Evers who fought in France and earned the rank of sergeant during the war. He returned to his home state of Mississippi where he went on to become Mississippi’s first NAACP field secretary setting up his office in Jackson over the top of the Big Apple Inn restaurant. Still open today, Juan “Big John” Mora (1890-1976) opened it back in 1939. Evers did not have adequate office space to hold meetings, and he would often hold them down stairs in Big John's where he would discuss civil rights organizing and protest strategies. When customers came in they liked what they

Southern Food and Civil Rights

What prompted you to write this book?
The idea for the book came from an NPR segment from the Kitchen Sisters, Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, and their series which they call Hidden Kitchens. I listened to a story about Georgia Gilmore's hidden Kitchen contribution to the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. From there I started doing research on the role of food in social movements and wrote about it on my blog in a series I call Feeding the Revolution.