In honor of Black History Month and a century of Black history commemorations, WayForward is highlighting the incredible impact and legacy of four Black leaders in food security and housing stability.

Representative Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005) spent her storied political career fighting for food access, racial justice, voting rights, women’s rights, and much more. Through her advocacy to expand federal food & unemployment assistance, Chisholm changed the lives of countless American families.

Chisholm was the first Black woman to run for President, and the first Black woman ever elected to US Congress. She represented New York’s 12th congressional district for seven consecutive terms. Her district included the Bedford–Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, a predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhood that experienced high rates of food insecurity.

Chisholm was galvanized to improve food access and nutrition-related health outcomes for her constituents and others experiencing hunger across the US. She partnered with Sen. Bob Dole to formally recommend piloting a nutritional assistance program for mothers and young children in 1972. As a result, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) was born. Despite opposition, Chisholm worked tirelessly in support of the program and successfully made WIC funding permanent through amendments to the Child Nutrition Act in 1975. Today, WIC is considered one of the USDA’s most successful nutrition assistance programs in the country.

George Washington Carver (c.1865-1943) was a chemist, educator, and agricultural scientist whose work made farming more sustainable and profitable for communities across the southern US. His brilliant work was motivated by strong religious faith and a deep commitment to apply science in service to everyday people.

Carver was the first Black scholar to graduate from what is now Iowa State University, and brought his passion for practical science to bear as Director of Agriculture at the Tuskegee Institute. The “Plant Doctor” transformed life for Black Southern farmers through techniques like crop rotation, which restored nutrients to fields depleted by cotton and tobacco production. Carver took his agricultural discoveries on the road through his Tuskegee extension program. He published free, accessibly-written recipes to ensure farmers could extract the greatest nutrition and profit from crops like peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, pecans, and more.

Representative Mickey Leland (1944-1989) was a passionate advocate for food and healthcare access who dedicated his political career to working on behalf of food-insecure populations in the US and across the world. 

Leland’s reform efforts began at the community organizing level in his hometown of Houston, Texas. He helped establish free medical access programs and became a prominent voice among local civil rights leaders. Leland won a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 1972, and continued to advance the interests of low income Americans upon his election to Congress in 1979. He visited soup kitchens and shelters, donated personally to food banks, and spent the night sleeping on a steam grate on the streets of Washington D.C. to draw public attention toward food and housing issues in 1987.

After a formative visit to Sudan, Leland’s focus on food policy expanded to addressing starvation in developing nations. Through unwavering advocacy, Leland successfully formed the House Select Committee on Hunger and helped push through legislation for an almost-$800 million aid package for global famine relief in 1984. Leland passed away in an accident while traveling to deliver aid to Sudanese refugees in 1989, but the legacy of his fight for food security continues. To honor his work, Congress enacted the Mickey Leland Memorial Domestic Hunger Relief Act of 1990 and the Mickey Leland Childhood Hunger Relief Act of 1993 to continue funding for federal food assistance programs.

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) was a voting rights activist and civil rights leader who set a new precedent for grassroots farming cooperatives in the United States.

Hamer’s activism stemmed from pivotal incidents of injustice in her life, including her forced sterilization by a white doctor in 1961 and the struggle she underwent trying to register to vote in 1962. Hamer fought endlessly to empower Black citizens through desegregation activism, voter outreach, legal suits, and mutual aid. She organized with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and co-founded the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party.

Despite direct opposition from President Lyndon B. Johnson, Hamer spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 1964. She testified about her eviction after attempting to register to vote, and the violent assault perpetrated against her by white law enforcement officers after a sit-in protest. She also called for racially integrated state delegations at the DNC on behalf of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party. Hamer’s message was broadcast on news stations across the country, leading to a speaking tour that included the University of Wisconsin—Madison. She discussed her upbringing in Ruleville, Mississippi, and the food insecurity her family experienced as sharecroppers: “I know what the pain of hunger is about.”

Hamer was determined to empower poor farming families through shared food and financial opportunity. She leveraged a $10,000 grant from Madison-based nonprofit Measure for Measure to acquire land in Sunflower County, Mississippi, and founded the Freedom Farm Cooperative in 1969.

Through communally growing food, raising pigs, and selling cash crops, the Freedom Farm Cooperative fulfilled needs neglected by federal programs and enabled members to create a more stable living together, on their terms. The Coop later expanded to include housing, a farm store, boutique, and sewing business, and became one of the largest employers in Sunflower County. As Hamer said, “All the qualifications that you have to have to become part of the co-op is you have to be poor… This is the first kind of program that has ever been sponsored in the country in letting local people do their thing themselves.”