The Henry Ford exhibit: "Food Soldiers"

“Food Soldiers: Nutrition and Race Activism” explores connections between agriculture and the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities.

Each year, The Henry Ford recognizes Black History Month with a pop-up exhibit and additional digital content that draws attention to objects and archival material in THF’s vast collections not normally on view. This year (2021) Debra Reid, curator of agriculture and the environment at The Henry Ford started with a recent acquisition, a press photograph of three Black nutritionists at work in Detroit, Michigan in 1970. This became her entry point into exploring the proactive steps that Black nutritionists took to overcome long-term consequences of sharecropping and landlessness. They linked food education to full citizenship, and they allied with Black educators, farmers, private self-help organizations, and public programs to create healthier citizens. The exhibition, “Food Soldiers: Nutrition as Race Activism,” is on view in The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation through March, but this blog will remain a permanent reminder of the urgency of this work historically, and how the work continues today.

Debra Reid is past president and a fellow of the Agricultural History Society.