Food is central to culture. The earliest evidence of civilization reveals the importance of food to spirit, mind, and soul, in addition to economy and well-being.
From the slave trade to post-Reconstruction share cropping born out of discriminatory land policies, to Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farm Cooperative, to the Black Panthers’ revolutionary free breakfast programs, Black people have been fighting for food access for centuries.
Hundreds of years of racist policies—many of which are still active today—make food insecurity disproportionately more prevalent among Black individuals and communities compared to their white counterparts. Throughout US history, policies have been systematically crafted to disempower Black people and communities, taking their wealth and stripping away opportunities.
The Black community consistently faces hunger at higher rates than whites due to social, economic, and environmental factors, most of which are the result of unequal treatment over time.
While the farm-to-table food movement has swept across the U.S. in recent years, this new pivot to local-sourcing and farmers’ markets is enjoyed almost exclusively by upper class, white, suburban America. By contrast, lack of access to natural foods has left entire communities—mostly BIPOC, buckled by persistently low wages or outright poverty—stranded in “food deserts” with gas stations and dollar stores as the only options to buy groceries. These stores don’t offer oranges let alone leafy greens.
Instead, the residents of food deserts have only one option: ersatz food—high-calorie, chemical-rich, salt and sugar-laden. There is a food apartheid happening in the United States that is ignored by most and experienced by too many.
