The relationship between food and the American civil rights movement is often storied within the context of lunch counter sit-ins. Yet, food not only functioned as a backdrop to protests and demonstrations, it also took center stage. In the Mississippi Delta, for instance, an event known by activists as the 1962–1963 Greenwood Food Blockade illuminated the centrality of food to movement politics. Rarely remarked upon or discussed in detail, scholars read the blockade as an isolated disruption to the Mississippi Civil Rights movement, overlooking the significance of this event. In this paper, I attempt to recover the Greenwood Food Blockade from narratives of the civil rights movement and offer an alternative reading of the event. This reading is instructive and extends what we know about the civil rights movement in important ways. First, it enlarges our understanding of food as a weapon, tool, tactic, and everyday preoccupation in the civil rights era. Second, it amplifies the role of poor rural black communities, local activists, and women in dictating the civil rights agenda in tandem with national activists. Third, it shows how these actors engaged in everyday food politics central to our understandings of food justice and food sovereignty today.

食物和美国民权运动之间的关系通常是在午餐柜台静坐的背景下进行的。然而，食物不仅充当了抗议和示威活动的背景，而且也成为了焦点。例如，在密西西比三角洲，一个活动家将其称为1962-1963年的“格林伍德食品封锁”事件，阐明了食品在运动政治中的核心地位。很少提及或详细讨论，学者们认为封锁是对密西西比民权运动的一次孤立破坏，忽略了这一事件的重要性。在本文中，我试图从民权运动的叙述中恢复“格林伍德食品封锁”，并提供对该事件的另一种解读。这种阅读具有启发性，并以重要方式扩展了我们对民权运动的了解。第一，它扩大了我们对食品作为民权时代武器，工具，战术和日常事务的认识。第二，它扩大了贫穷的农村黑人社区，地方活动家和妇女在与国家活动家共同决定民权议程中的作用。第三，它显示了这些参与者如何参与日常的食物政治，这是我们今天对食物正义和食物主权的理解的核心。