Martin Luther King and Southern Food: The Morehouse Years

Photo: 1948 MLK graduation from Morehouse photo taken with his sister Christine who graduated from Spelman the same year.

MLK attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, an all male Historical Black College (HBCU). My first academic post was at Morehouse where I was an assistant professor of history from 2000 to 2003. MLK enrolled at the house at age 15 in 1944 graduating with honors in 1948. Morehouse was part of the Atlanta University Center (AUC), located in Southwest Atlanta, and African-American community. AUC schools included the Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta University), Morris Brown College, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. I talk about HBCU cafeteria food in my book Hog and Hominy http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy/excerpt. Most HBCU students like King “were trying to go some place and get good food off campus. Because the food was just institutional,” remembers Spelman grad Stanlie M. James. The fact that HBCU cafeterias served one meal option that tasted “institutional,” translation—lacked soul, seemed the biggest complaint of students in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. James explains, “It was not like today where college cafeterias are operated like a food court with salad bars, pasta bars, and lots of options.” In the neighborhood surrounding the AUC complex there were notable black eateries like Pascal’s, and more humble holes-in-the-wall. I will talk about some of these places and MLK tomorrow.

Lecture and Book Signing: Frederick Douglass Opie, "Feeding the Revolution," A Discussion of the Foods of the Civil Rights Movement

Date: Sunday January 17, 2010
Time: 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Location: St. Augustine's Episcopal Church
Street: 6 Old Post Rd North
City/Town: Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520

Phone: 914- 271-3501

Email: august@bestweb.net

Driving Directions to St. Augustine's
From the North or South:
Take Rte 9/9A.
Exit at the Croton exit labeled Rte 129.
At the end of the exit ramp, turn right, away from the river.
At the 2nd traffic light (you will be facing a CVS and post office parking lot), turn left onto Rte. 129, Maple Ave.
Turn left at the 1st traffic light onto Old Post Rd So.-- (Kathleen Reidy, Law Office is on the far lefthand corner.)
Go one block to "T" junction: there is a traffic light in the middle of the road.
Turn left onto Grand St.
Go one block to the corner of Grand St. & Old Post Road North.
There we are!

From the Taconic Parkway:
Take the Underhill Rd exit off the Taconic.
Turn West toward Croton-on-Hudson.
Turn Right onto Rte. 129 where Underhill dead-ends at the bottom of a steep hill.
Coming into Croton, there is a "Y" where Grand St. branches to the right off of 129. A sign for Perry Kennedy Real Estate sits in front of a small house that is in the fork of the "Y"
Take the Right fork of the "Y" onto Grand St.
Continue a short few