FIELD TRIP

Alabama in Black and White
June 4-6, 2004

The Southern Foodways Alliance met in Birmingham, Alabama to celebrate racial reconciliation through food. We gathered in the crucible of the Civil Rights Movement, for a weekend of conversations, presentations, and libations commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

We feasted on a Lazy Susan Supper of barbecue and biscuits and greens, and sipped wines from South Africa, curated by the Palm Wine Society. We barrelled through the Alabama countryside, bound for the Freedom Creek Blues Festival, where Willie King and friends celebrated interracial bonds through down home blues and great home cooking. Southerners of different hues and hometowns returned to Birmingham and embraced a city of renewed hope, no longer shackled by Jim Crow.