Community organizers Kirtrina M. Baxter, Dara Cooper and Chris Bolden Newsome discuss racial disparities in the food movement, strengthening community work through food, and advocating for food sovereignty in communities of color.

Kirtrina Baxter is currently the community organizer for the Garden Justice Legal Initiative—a program of the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia. She's also a dedicated mother, drummer, food justice activist, and community organizer. As an Agro-Africanist, she has a passion for preserving and creating cultural traditions through nutrition, growing food, seedkeeping, and advocacy.

Dara Cooper is a national organizer with the National Black Food and Justice Alliance, an alliance of Black led organizations working towards national Black food and land justice. She is also an organizer with the HEAL Food Alliance and has just completed a southern tour interviewing Black farmers, co-ops, and food hubs with the Center for Social Inclusion.

Chris Bolden Newsome is the Farm Manager at Bartram’s Community Farm and Food Resources Center and a Crop Management Instructor at the Farm School NYC. Chris keeps the farm’s harvest in the neighborhood with a CSA and by supplying local grocery stores and restaurants. And his sense of connection not only to the past but also the future is clear when he says, “Food sovereignty is more than a right - it’s an obligation to future generations.”

Overall partners: Seeing Stories: Visualizing Sustainable Citizenship is co-curated by Temple Contemporary, Temple University’s Office of Sustainability, and Temple University Libraries, along with faculty and graduate students from the Tyler School of Art, the College of Liberal Arts, and the Center for the Cinematic and Performing Arts.

This is part of the Libraries' Beyond the Page public programming series.