
Food Power Politics
The Food Story of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement
Bobby J. Smith II(Author)
The University of North Carolina Press
Published on 29. August 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
216 pages
978-1-4696-7507-7 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
[Smith] shows how the struggles of the region's Black communities laid the groundwork for the modern food justice movement. Sadly, access to fresh, unprocessed meals still elude many Black Americans today, but this little-known narrative reconstructed by Smith offers key lessons that could inform the current challenges."-Civil EatsMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Chapel Hill
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
10 halftones, 2 maps
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
376 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4696-7507-7 (9781469675077)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
08/2023
The University of North Carolina Press
€19.49
Available for download
Person
Bobby J. Smith II is assistant professor of African American studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.