Black History
Chef and Author Michael Twitty Talks Culture, Truth at Juneteenth Celebration
“You need fiber, leave in the stem.”
“Cut the greens thin.”
In a robust voice that seemed unaffected after hours in temperatures that topped 115 degrees and more, author and chef Michael W. Twitty gave instructions to his helpers as they cooked using an open fire, wood and 19th century tools in a detached kitchen on an 1860s farmstead.
Twitty was a special guest for the Juneteenth celebration Sunday afternoon at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta’s Buckhead community.
The history museum and research center hosted a free two-day lineup of family programs, activities and performances to commemorate African Americans’ second Independence Day, which began on June 19, 1865 when the abolition of slavery was announced in Texas — the last state in rebellion after the end of the Civil War.
The Center brought in Twitty to speak on African and African American food traditions in Southern barbecue as well as to do cooking demonstrations.
But, Twitty readily pointed out, he wasn’t there to put on a show, but rather to teach the history of American foodways, which has its roots in African culture.
Still, he was concerned. If the visitors were expecting to see some authentic recreation of the type of food black people ate during slavery, they would be disappointed.
“Authenticity is relative,” Twitty said, adding that what they were doing had very little to do with how they ate in the 1860s. “It’s never gonna be like that.”
Also, he added, “My goal is never to cook anything that is not seasonal. Fresh meat consumption was extremely low for black people during slavery time.”
In fact, enslaved people rarely—if ever—ate so well. On Sunday, Twitty and staff members as well as volunteers from the museum, made barbecue ribs, chicken, dumplings dipped in cooked blueberries, sweet potato and greens plucked from the museum’s garden.
During slavery times, they would often eat the entrails and internal organs of the animal, according to an article featuring Twitty in Garden & Gun magazine. They would eat pig feet, chitlins, chicken feet, hog maws, hog’s head, and pig ears. Sometimes they ate the game they caught: possum and raccoon and squirrel and quail and deer and sometimes even rats, according to the article.
These stories are often never told. Twitty said African Americans know little of the origins of much of their foodways and folkways. He blames that on white supremacy and what it teaches: “The idea that we’ve contributed very little,” Twitty said.
But Twitty, who is also an historian and teacher, said the truth is found in the history and origin of American foodways.
“I want them to know that we have a proud culinary history; that we came from something, from somebody,” Twitty said.
Twitty, who is 40, grew up hearing the stories of what his ancestors endured. His maternal grandmother told him how her parents would miss out on a meal at least once a week so they could feed their seven children.
He remembers cooking side by side with his mother and grandmother while growing up in Washington, D.C., and though he disliked Southern fare (black-eyed peas, collard greens, okra) he said he soon grew to love it.
And in his 20s began experimenting with different foods. On Sunday, he shared some of what he learned.
Despite the heat, dozens came into the kitchen to hear Twitty, author of The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South and winner of the 2018 James Beard award.
Some like Kara Hudson and her husband stayed a while although their clothes, wet with sweat, clung to their bodies.
“It’s just fascinating,” said Hudson who follows Twitty on Facebook and Twitter and reads all his blogs. “African foodways, Caribbean foodways, southern foodways, all things that is American foodways, it’s just fascinating to see all of that being recognized.”
On his blogs—Afroculinaria and The Cooking Gene—he writes about his obsessions with the roots of African American and Southern food history as well as his personal journeys.
He writes about his Southern Discomfort Tour, a series of trips in the South to uncover overlooked, underappreciated, and sensitive historical truths, according to Garden & Gun. To his “fellow African Americans,” he writes, “We complain a lot when sites and shows and movies and the like don’t reflect our history or experience. We want them to tell it like it is…but many of my colleagues have complained that so often we don’t empower each other to tell our own stories,” according to the article.
On Sunday, Twitty said he was happy to see many of his people.
“They gave me energy,” said Twitty, who after a two-hour preparation, began cooking from noon and continued until four o’clock that afternoon. “I like it when black people bring their children.”
Twitty used the occasion to talk about the struggles of enslaved African Americans who used their skills and abilities in cooking to survive. But when he starts talking about slavery, he’s disappointed to see many of them quickly leave while most of the white visitors remain. Still, he understands why so many African Americans tend to evade the subject. It’s too difficult, too painful for them.
“A lot of people just don’t know how to talk about it,” Twitty said, adding that most African Americans grew up in homes that never touched the topic.
But Twitty doesn’t let their reluctance stop him. He has a message to deliver, he said, as he continued working in the kitchen under conditions similar to what enslaved black people endured on a daily basis for centuries.
“You come from kings and queens, people who built this country,” Twitty said. “People who lived this life, did this so you can have a nice life, have good things. They also did this so we could hold our heads high.”
Black History
First Black Manhattan District Attorney Wins Historic Felony Convictions Against Donald Trump
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg led the investigation that resulted in the first felony conviction of a former United States President, Donald Trump. Bragg’s case centered on the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, a porn actor who said she and Trump had sex in 2006. The trial involved charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up the payment to Daniels.
“While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes to the courtroom doors,” Bragg said during a press conference after the jury’s verdict was announced. “By following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor.”
Trump and his Republican supporters have accused Bragg of “weaponizing” the judicial system.
“This was a disgrace,” Trump said. “This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt as a rigged trial, a disgrace. The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people. And they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here.”
Who is Alvin Bragg
In 2021, Bragg became the first African American elected as the District Attorney for New York County covering Manhattan. He graduated from Harvard Law School and has served as an Assistant Attorney General at the New York State Attorney General’s Office and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bragg is a former member of the Board of Directors of the New York Urban League and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and a Sunday School teacher at his church.
Political Science professor, Sekou Franklin, said, “Bragg took a big risk bringing the case against former President Donald Trump. Undoubtedly, this risk is both personal and political. Despite this challenge, his willingness to prosecute Trump took great courage.”
Trump’s litany of indictments started when he left office in 2020 after losing the White House to President Joe Biden. Charges of Trump’s attempts to overthrow the 2020 election continue to generate investigations and outrage. African American prosecutors have led three of the most significant cases.
In Georgia, Trump was indicted, along with 18 of his allies, for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis brought the charges; however, the case became overshadowed by controversy when Willis was accused of hiring Nathan Wade as the special prosecutor because she was in a romantic relationship with him. Judge Scott McAfee declined to disqualify Willis, a decision Trump and his team are challenging.
Earlier this year New York State Attorney General Letitia James handed Trump a defeat after a New York judge ordered him and his business trust to pay $453.5 million in penalties and interest as part of his civil fraud case. The judge ruled that Trump fraudulently inflated the value of his real estate holdings when applying for loans.
But the latest convictions on 34 felony counts against the former President known for his boundary-breaking is historic.
“Alvin Bragg represents the new wave of prosecutors who have strong ties to public impact and community lawyering,” said Franklin, a professor at Middle Tennessee State. “Many of these prosecutors were elected as a result of protests that targeted racialized violence by law enforcement.”
Trump has described James, Willis and Bragg as “racists” – a thinly veiled attempt to tap into a vein of ingrained racism in the nation. The Republican Party lamented the convictions, decrying the trial as a political attack and a “shameful” day in American history.
Democrats view the convictions as an opportunity to sharpen their arguments that Trump is unfit to lead the nation domestically or represent America globally.
Trump faces up to four years in prison. His sentencing is set for July 11 – days before the start of the Republican National Convention.
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