Feeding the Revolution in New Orleans

A New Orleans gumbo, two recipes listed below

Since the late 1930s Dooky Chase Restaurant in the Treme neighborhood has been a fixture in Black New Orleans making traditional and Creole style soul food dishes. During the civil rights movement Dooky Chase served as an important meeting place for black activist such as the Rev. Avery Alexander, Rev. A.L. Davis (SCLC), and Dr. Henry Mitchell (NAACP) who in late 1959 organized the Consumers' League of Greater New Orleans (CLGNO) to fight employment discrimination by the Dryades Street merchants. At the time African Americans made up 40% of the city’s. Canal Street served as the main shopping district but white store owners operated rigidly segregated business that sold black folks goods but would not seat them as their lunch counters or let them use their segregated bath rooms. In the city’s black shopping districts on Dryades Street, White Jewish merchants operated stores open to blacks but refused to employ them above the rank of custodians. It was from Dooky Chase restaurant that members of the CLGNO and black and white students from Dillard University, Xavier University of Louisiana, Southern University of New Orleans, and Tulane University organized a movement over gumbo to fight employment discrimination by the Dryades Street merchants. Leah Chase recalls, I “fed civil rights workers when they would come in . . . to the restaurant, and we made this big pot of gumbo. We cooked; they ate; they planned, then they went on.” Here are some gumbo recipes that fit appropriately for this story.

Traditional gumbo recipe: http://www.bigoven.com/170608-New-Orleans-Creole-Gumbo-recipe.html

Vegan gumbo recipe: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=27730.0