Power Hungry - Suzanne Cope

There is a veritable pantheon of books related to the civil rights movement, and/or the Black Panther Party. But this book is special because it underlies the true story of two female pioneers, and how they used food as a weapon for change. Set aside all the things yyou thought you knew and give this book a moment of your time. You won’t regret it.

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Two unsung women whose power using food as a political weapon during the civil rights movement was so great it brought the ire of government agents working against them.

In early 1969 Cleo Silvers and a few Black Panther Party members met at a community center laden with boxes of donated food to cook for the neighborhood children. By the end of the year, the Black Panthers would be feeding more children daily in all of their breakfast programs than the state of California was at that time.

More than a thousand miles away, Aylene Quin had spent the decade using her restaurant in McComb, Mississippi, to host secret planning meetings of civil rights leaders and organizations, feed the hungry, and cement herself as a community leader who could bring people together—physically and philosophically—over a meal.

About The Author

Suzanne Cope is a writing professor at NYU, who has been researching and writing about food and politics for years. Her articles have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and Travel + Leisure, as well as with the BBC, CNN, BuzzFeed, NPR, and more. She speaks on related topics on radio shows, and podcasts, and at numerous professional and meetings. Cope lives in Brooklyn, New York.