“Food Power Politics: The Weaponization Of Food In The Fight For Survival In The Delta”: Nia Raquelle Smith on Bobby Smith II’s *Food Power Politics: The Food History of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement*

In his debut book, Food Power Politics: The Food History of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, Bobby Smith II vividly recounts the story of the slow but continued and covert weaponization of food. This historical narrative, deeply rooted in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, serves as a powerful connection to the past, shedding light on the subjugation of Black people during the Civil Rights era in the Jim Crow South. Smith’s narrative also highlights the present-day evolution of this movement into a food sovereignty movement, underscoring the enduring impact of this historical struggle on modern-day food justice movements.

Written from an archival point of view, Smith takes a different approach to recounting the impact of food on the Mississippi Delta. The author uses various evidence from primary resources such as maps, flyers, newspapers, interviews, oral histories, memoirs, participant observation, and scholarship to expand what is typically thought of as the civil rights movement. Grocery stores, all of which happened to be white-owned in the Mississippi Delta, are revealed as being the central cause of Black people’s starvation and nutritional plight. In detailing how food is integral to this alternative perspective of the civil rights movement, beginning with the Greenwood Food Blockade, Smith intentionally interprets the archival material from an angle that does not fit the traditional civil rights or food justice pedagogy that most know. This is an eye-opening and jarring account of what happened in the Delta to the people who did not move on and were left behind during the Civil Rights Era while the great migration continued in the background. The details from various means of research, oral histories, and memoirs of white business people and politicians showed how they conspired to not only take advantage and exploit the labor of Black sharecroppers but severely stunt their livelihood and welfare. The true level of involvement of white businessmen and politicians, who also were the face of white supremacy, is often left out of the retelling and educating about the inequalities faced by the poor Black families of the rural south. The federal government left white politicians in charge of the food stamp program after transitioning from a food surface program; it became challenging for the fight to continue as the livelihood of Black people in the Delta was threatened for attempting to exercise their rights. The dire conditions detailed by Fannie Lou Hamer, L.C. Dorsey, Unita Blackwell, and Mariam Wright at Senate hearings mentioned the shortcomings of the federal Food Stamp program, forcing ‘Black sharecropping families to navigate the thin line between life and death.’

Food is often only mentioned in the Civil Rights Era when referring to lunch counter sit-ins. However, it is crucial to center food in the civil rights movement to understand the foundation for the modern-day food justice movements and challenges in the Mississippi Delta area and nationwide. White supremacists used starvation tactics to prevent Black people from registering to vote, integrating themselves into white society, or exercising their rights. The continued exploitation by white landowners, businessmen, and politicians further exacerbated socio-cultural and political obstacles for Black sharecroppers. Intimidation methods to cripple the mobilization of the Delta’s Black community by withholding and intentionally creating obstacles to obtaining sustenance can only be thought of as violent. The state was, therefore, responsible for who ate and, by extension, who lived and who died – a stark reminder that Black lives remained at the behest of white people, thus upholding the plantation culture, which directly impacted the movement. In contrast, readers learn the leverage and role of women and the power dynamics they forge in the community with the people versus that of the white supremacist culture seeking power over people, as Smith so eloquently puts it. Freedom from racial oppression is held hostage even at the expense of poor white people if it meant repressing Black people’s cries for equality in the Delta.

We see Black women at the forefront, organizing voter registration drives, engaging and volunteering at various food cooperatives, gardens, and food networks – leading the charge to feed the people. Despite never being mentioned as such, food is central to the cause, thus unveiling how Black women must play second fiddle or remain in the background to achieve the bigger goal. The rarely discussed episodes of misogyny and gendered roles were rampant in the civil rights movement. Women like L.C. Dorsey, Fannie Lou Hamer, Unita Blackwell, Marian Wright, and others worked to prioritize the community’s food needs while also balancing the needs of the movement. Smith ensures it is known that women were the bridge leaders for the civil rights movement in the Delta and beyond, weaponizing food themselves to not only uplift Black families out of poverty but empower them for the fight ahead. These actors attempted to starve the rural Black people of the Delta into submission despite the relentless resolve of women. This resolve stems from Black society’s gender ideology for women: they must nourish and feed the family. Black women realized the struggle to eat and the fight for food access was all for naught if Black people had no autonomy or agency in the socio-political realm. Using their agrarian knowledge and numbers, families worked together to build a food cooperative with a network of opportunities ranging from nutritional resources to health and employment opportunities for Black croppers who were unemployed due to the ever-increasing industrialization of the agricultural way of life. Food, in essence, became the motivation, battle, and fight for survival, creating what Cornell West dubbed as cultural armor.

White grocers, business leaders, and the government, however, used the federal Food Stamp and Food Surplus program to engage in purposeful food deprivation at the expense of Black people. Strikingly, Smith’s historical scholarship, in tandem with archival organizational materials and personal papers from civil rights organizations, activists, and organizations, unearthed how the same food was used to shield Black sharecroppers from the same oppression imposed upon them by white grocers. Starting with the Green Blockade Centering Black American studies, the civil rights movement, food justice, food studies, history, agri-food studies, and Southern studies, Smith reveals a food story that tells Mississippi’s truth and role in laying the foundation for modern-day work in food justice and food sovereignty.

This book is for anyone interested in food justice, civil rights, Black women activists, community organizing, southern studies, and historical movements. As a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Smith’s passionate interdisciplinary scholarship in African American agriculture and food studies is exuded in meticulous research and fluid writing that is coherent, detailed, and engaging. Each chapter is laid out with an outline detailing the exact questions the research aims to answer, the methodology used, and the collaborators or sources of inspiration for the research. This level of detail will leave readers feeling informed and enlightened. Each chapter examines how central food is to the survival of the civil rights movement. It delves into the continued cycle of forced prison and enslavement, masquerading as sharecropping from the yesteryears of slavery. It also explores the evolution of the food stamp program that failed to promise nutritional staples. By connecting these historical issues to modern-day struggles, such as the fight for food justice, the book keeps the audience engaged and connected to the narrative. The continuity to contemporary social issues makes this book a compelling read for those interested in the intersection of history, food studies, and current events.

Smith does a great job of piquing interest in the forgotten era of the civil rights movement. We know the name Fannie Lou Hamer, a name sometimes forgotten in the movement, along with the names of many other Black women who worked relentlessly during the civil rights movement.  Women such as Hamer and Dorsey were often pushed to the background and endured misogyny and gender bias by being told that their place was to be a nurturer. Knowing that was detrimental to the activism of their people; these women ignored the men in their lives as they knew dead people could not vote. It was necessary to have food to eat so the people of Bolivar County and beyond could vote for each other in order to wage war against white supremacy in the Delta and surrounding areas nationwide. These women and others worked together with various organizations to feed the Black sharecroppers of the Delta and register them to vote. This further proved that the need for and fight for food emancipation was integral to the civil rights movement’s success.

Smith provides an alternate understanding of these events from the perspective of the marginalized people who were harmed. As Smith puts it, seeing these events from this angle breathes life into what some may deem an alternate truth, which is what Black people experienced from their point of view. They understand the Black experience of subjugation, which can be enlightening and foster empathy in the audience or spark a fire to get involved with current movements. This greater understanding, provided by the text, also brings forth the realization and source of present-day food insecurity and food apartheid concerns in the nation.

The struggles of solidarity and activism continued as white business owners gained power at the national level to control the food stamp program. These women went before several Senate committees to speak about creating changes to the food stamp program to resolve the atrocities to allow more Black sharecroppers and unemployed farm laborers access to food. The campaigns, coalitions, and cooperatives created by the people of Bolivar County as an alternative to the federal food stamp program did not go unnoticed. Networks and similar programs and organizations across the Delta bloomed and spread from Mississippi to as far north as Chicago, Washington DC, and beyond in the spirit of the North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative. Women sowed the seeds in the Delta for those who did not migrate north. Some may view these failed attempts by Delta organizations, founded on feeding the bodies of Black families and social mobility, as the planted seed of the movement. These seeds flourished into the foundation and framework for the current movements of food, justice, sovereignty, and emancipation in food power we see today. Their influence is evident in modern movements addressing sovereignty, emancipation, and food agencies nationwide. Many of these women- and youth-led organizations, such as Delta Fresh in Mississippi and Soul Fire Farm in New York, align with research by Smith, who claims that the fight is not over. These people are continuing to ensure that Black people, some of whom are descendants of those same Black sharecroppers, have the agency to ensure they have a voice and continue to eat and access culturally relevant nutritious food. Smith and Dorsey both note they are the true foremothers of many youth-led operations of the modern-day food movement.

This book should be included and referenced in curriculum-related activities highlighting agri-economics, civil rights, southern American studies, politics, food justice sovereignty, and women’s studies. The insight provided by Smith is a perfect example of history repeating itself on all fronts and manifesting in the modern-day struggle for power and food justice. A window into the past, the book is a foretelling story of today’s freedom fighters who provided nourishment with hope and food to a community battling the long-term effects of white supremacy from the plantation era. Adding this book to the canon for food culture, justice, and history in academia not only adds weight to the subject matter but also challenges and stimulates the current pedagogy of scholars, inspiring them to reevaluate their perspectives and approaches to food culture and the newly minted area by Smith of Food Power Politics.