Founded in 1999 by a purposefully diverse group of Southerners, SFA works to bridge divides in a long-divided region. Early on, founders Lolis Eric Elie and the late John Egerton wrote an open letter to our board of directors, challenging passivity and disabusing SFA of assumptions that “reconciliation will take place naturally, without premeditation, among people of goodwill, and that silence is an indication that all is well.” They disagreed, writing, “It is too easy to slip into the comfortable assumption that if no one is talking about racial inequities, they no longer exist.”

People are talking now. SFA aims to listen. The SFA stands with our colleagues and compatriots engaged in protest. The Southern Foodways Alliance pledges to make change by taking antiracist stances and doing work that protects and values and uplifts our Black brothers and sisters.