Food Not Bombs - Memphis (Part 1 of 3)
Local & National News | October 18, 2025 | 4:30 p.m. CDT

Edited: October 27, 2025 | 2:25 p.m. CDT

Written by: Gilbert Barnes Carter III
 

A profound food justice movement was spawned in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the ominous shadow of the arms race during the 1980s that featured the former Soviet Union and the United States. It was designed to outlast the paranoia and warmongering that stemmed from nuclear weapons proliferation efforts worldwide at that time. Disruptors characterized the beginning stages by staging a major protest at the Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire on May 24, 1980. They also partook in their very first communal meal directly outside of the Federal Reserve Bank building in Boston as Bank of Boston stockholders convened on March 26, 1981. Food Not Bombs is now international in scope with disruptors in over 1,000 chapters in over 60 countries. The movement is also a powerful contingency against the workers of iniquity who brazenly carry out one of the most evil practices in recorded human history: war profiteering.

"Mutual aid, not charity. . ."

I am currently making a gradual transition to the homesteading lifestyle. I am also giving careful consideration to how I can increase my capacity for homesteading within the corporate limits of the city. I have come to the realization that a capacity building function in that context in rural and urban areas is land reclamation. There are a number of prolific Black landowners or "planters" who lived in Memphis and Shelby County and were prosperous. *Dr. Green Fort Pinkston (1875 - 1962), Mr. Bert Maynard Roddy (1886 - 1963), Mr. Clarence Gillis (1882 - 1943), Mr. Isham F. Norris, Mr. Joseph Clouston, Mr. Nathaniel Dixon, Mr. Philip M. Nicholson (1846 - 1925), and Mr. Thomas H. Hayes (1863 - 1949) are several of them. *Dr. Pinkston owned over 300 acres of land in South Memphis; Mr. Dixon was a dairy farmer; and Mr. Gillis (Gillis Brothers), Mr. Hayes, Mr. Norris, and Mr. Roddy were retail and wholesale grocers.   

I decided to work with Food Not Bombs - Memphis volunteers after Ms. Kimberley Davs, a faithful and supportive community advocate, informed me about the first communal land project planning meeting that they held on July 13. I sent an e-mail message to Food Not Bombs - Memphis volunteers on July 16 to make an appeal to share my land in good faith out of my desire to at least attempt to replicate what Black men and women established here between the 1850s and 1940s through shared farming for sustenance. I want to do exactly that with diligent groups who are already front facing and providing service for some of the most vulnerable Memphians. The content of Mr. Neal Trotter's response is very encouraging. It is a form of confirmation that Food Not Bombs - Memphis is certainly one of those groups. It is also another form of confirmation of how I am destined to be on the trajectory of establishing self-sustainable living.

"Thank you for reaching out. Offering your parcel of land for community gardening is amazing! That's certainly something we would like to take you up on. We would like to talk with you more in depth about utilization on your land. We wish to not just have a community garden but also a mutual aid hub to be used as a meeting location for social justice activism, a safe space for marginalized and vulnerable folks, housing for homeless families and individuals, a safe space for marginalized and vulnerable folks, and other land uses as well. We would like to know how much of that utilization you would be interested in."

"In Memphis, you are not required to have a permit to posses a handgun but, according to the Downtown Memphis Commission, you are required to have a permit to give free food in a public space." - Mr. Neal Trotter 

Food Not Bombs volunteers are non-violent disruptors at the intersection of environmental justice, food access, food justice, food security, and public policy. Environmental justice, food access, food justice, food security, and public policy are inextricably linked. The fallout from regressive public policies at the federal, local, and state levels of government, such as the current federal Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 (HR 8467), have not deterred Food Not Bombs volunteers across the country. Food Not Bombs - Memphis volunteers have stood unfazed during numerous attempts by Memphis police officers to intimidate and issue citations to them. Their anarchist stance should be adopted in a city such as Memphis where many residents do not have positions of transformative power to sit in nor stand.

Food Not Bombs - Memphis volunteers are also very adept at identifying institutions, such as the Downtown Memphis Commission, where people callously and consciously carry out systemic practices that perpetuate and undergird local human hunger as a pervasive social problem.   

Please join us on Saturday, October 25 to plant broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, collard greens, kale, and spinach during our Fall Planting Event at 37 West Waldorf Avenue, 38109, in the heart of the Riverview community. We will use seeds and vegetable plants. Join us in solidarity.

*Source – Nineteenth Century Memphis Families of Color – 1850–1900

Photo Credits:

Header Photo by: Food Not Bombs - Memphis

Gilbert Barnes Carter III is a Memphis-based author, child welfare advocate, community organizer, emerging farmer, gardener, journalist, and social justice advocate. He began his social justice advocacy and work by serving as a Shelby County Fetal and Infant Mortality Review (FIMR) Board volunteer in 2005. He has worked since then to effectuate change for low-wage, immigrant, and migrant workers as a Temporary Workers Campaign Manager with Workers Interfaith Network; an advocate for Teamsters Local 667 sanitation workers; and a community / field organizer to uphold blight reduction, efficient public mass transit, environmental justice, food access, food justice, food security, narrative change, and public safety.