At noon on Thursday, April 14, Joseph Ewoodzie Jr. presents “Getting Something to Eat” in Auditorium 124 in the Gertrude C. Ford Ole Miss Student Union. Ewoodzie spent more than a year following a group of socioeconomically diverse African Americans—from upper-middle-class patrons of the city’s fine-dining restaurants to men experiencing homelessness who must organize their days around the schedules of soup kitchens. He went food shopping, cooked, and ate with a young mother living in poverty and a grandmother working two jobs. He worked in a Black-owned BBQ restaurant, and he met a man who decided to become a vegan for health reasons but must drive across town to get tofu and quinoa. He learned about how soul food is changing and why it is no longer a staple survival food. Now he presents these findings to show how food choices influence, and are influenced by, the racial and class identities of Black Jacksonians.

Demonstrating how “foodways”—food availability, choice, and consumption—vary greatly between classes of African Americans in Jackson, Mississippi, and how this reflects and shapes their very different experiences of a shared racial identity, Ewoodzie offers new insights into the lives of Black southerners and helps challenge the persistent homogenization of Blackness in American life. The phrase “you are what you eat” gains new poignance in this fascinating study.

Ewoodzie’s book, “Getting Something to Eat in Jackson: Race, Class, and Food in the American South,”provides a vivid portrait of African American life in the urban South and uses food to explore the complex interactions of race and class.

This event is cosponsored by the  Center for Inclusion and Cross Culture Engagement.

SouthTalks is a series of events (including lectures, performances, film screenings, and panel discussions) that explores the interdisciplinary nature of Southern Studies. This series is free and open to the public, and typically takes place in the Tupelo Room of Barnard Observatory. However, as a result of the ongoing health crisis, some events will be virtual, free, and accessible on the Center’s YouTube channel after each live event. Visit the Center’s website at southernstudies.olemiss.edu for more details. Locations listed here are subject to change, and more events may be added throughout the semester.