Food Power Politics: The Food Story of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement

Research output: Book/Report/Conference proceedingBook

Abstract

This book unearths a food story buried deep within the soil of American civil rights history. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and oral histories, Bobby J. Smith II re-examines the Mississippi civil rights movement as a period when activists expanded the meaning of civil rights to address food as integral to sociopolitical and economic conditions. For decades, white economic and political actors used food as a weapon against Black sharecropping communities in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, but members of these communities collaborated with activists to transform food into a tool of resistance. Today, Black youth are building a food justice movement in the Delta to continue this story, grappling with inequalities that continue to shape their lives.

Drawing on multiple disciplines including critical food studies, Black studies, history, sociology, and southern studies, Smith makes critical connections between civil rights activism and present-day food justice activism in Black communities, revealing how power struggles over food empower them to envision Black food futures in which communities have the full autonomy and capacity to imagine, design, create, and sustain a self-sufficient local food system.
Original languageEnglish (US)
PublisherUniversity of North Carolina Press
Number of pages216
ISBN (Electronic)9781469675060
ISBN (Print)9781469675077
StatePublished - Aug 2023

Publication series

NameBlack Food Justice

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