CHARLESTON’S KJ KEARNEY PARTNERS WITH PBS TO EXPLAIN THAT FOOD IS POLITICAL

“Food has always been political.” That’s how Charleston community organizer KJ Kearney begins the first episode of his PBS series Citizen Better. He goes on to explain activism through food, especially in Black communities, citing the lunch counter sit-ins and bake sale fundraisers during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the call to support Black-owned businesses (including restaurants) after the 2020 deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

Kearney continues food activism for equality by running the popular social media accounts related to Black Food Fridays, which celebrate and highlight Black-owned restaurants, bars, food trucks, and vendors. Kearney started the accounts in 2020, and they have since gained a massive number of followers. He was nominated for a James Beard Award in media in 2022 for his social media work.

His journey into politics through food started when he authored the Red Rice Day proclamation in 2018. It was a time in South Carolina when citizens were debating the display of the Confederate flag and Confederate monuments and their connection to racism and slavery. Kearney wanted to increase education on Confederate imagery and the state’s role in the proliferation of the enslavement of Africans. “What I learned is, to get people involved in politics, you really have to give them something to rally around — one thing,” says Kearney, “One thing that everybody, regardless of their income or regardless of their education level, can say, ‘Okay, I know what that is.’”

Kearney’s first thought was to write a proclamation for a State Flag Day. He wanted to teach grade school children about the state flag and urge businesses to showcase the flag, in order to diminish the use of the Confederate flag. Kearney says he told a friend about his idea, and the friend replied that people would immediately see his agenda and dismiss it.

“So I thought, let’s do something a little less obvious,” says Kearney, “I can bring people together around food. Red rice ended up being the thing that I went with, and I wrote a proclamation for Red Rice Day in 2018.” The City of Charleston accepted the proclamation, and Mayor John Tecklenburg signed it in June 2018. Kearney chose red rice because the traditional Gullah Geechee dish comes from the enslaved West Africans who brought knowledge of rice cultivation and recipes for jollof rice.

“I wrote some scathing shit about the city of Charleston, in terms of their role in the enslavement of West Africans, and they just let it slide because it was surrounded by this thing that had to deal with food. And everybody loves food. I realized you can use food as a way to navigate political waters,” says Kearney, “That’s where my whole idea that food can be used as a tool of liberation, or it can bring people together started.”

Kearney continues to post on his Black Food Friday outlets, and new episodes of his Citizen Better show drop on PBS monthly.

2024-04-24T12:34:10Z dg43tfdfdgfd