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So often we talk about the leadership table where decisions are made as a precious thing. We act as if there is a secret password, or an inside track to the top. As a fairly visible Black journalist, and an advocate of sorts, I frequently get invited to the table where decisions on food leadership are made. And I appreciate the opportunity. But I am a dabbler, a dilettante and observer. I know the best knives, and how to make a roux, not how to organize folks around gardening or school food. It is sad that they couldn’t find the real voices of those working in the trenches, to invite. And interestingly, nobody ever asks me who else should be invited. I could list names of people far more knowledgeable than me.

I get the call because I am easy. The powers that be know where to find me. They know that I am not usually disruptive. Not to say that I don’t have opinions, or that I am not passionate. But I am a strategic thinker. I pick my battles. I don’t derail the train. And I have found a way to have my say with a bit of sugar on top. In a training I once attended they called people like me the “acceptable Negro.” It made me laugh, until it didn’t. There is a reason why I always get the call.

But instead of being angry, I try to use that space, and 15 minutes of opportunity to raise questions and to expand the lane from the inside. “Why am I the only person of color?”  “Why don’t you...

People's Grocery, a nonprofit organization that I co-founded in 2002 and directed until 2010, is often recognized for its success in cultivating capable leaders who are from and reflect the community it serves: West Oakland, CA. I credit this success to its dedication to the principle that social justice organizations working in historically marginalized communities of color must, ultimately, be led by the people who reflect and come from those communities. Over the years my co-founders and I worked hard to actualize this principle.

Unfortunately, many organizations doing similar work as People’s Grocery in similar communities of color around the country haven’t succeeded at building up their leadership from within their communities. To the leaders of such organizations who may desire to build more local leadership I offer one simple suggestion: redefine the skills and assets required for leadership and hire people who readily bring those skills and assets to the table.

Too often organizational leaders focus their staff recruitment on status quo managerial skills and professional experiences, which are typically technical and intellectual in nature, and fail to identify the kinds of skills that are needed to engage and lead in communities of color, which are often cultural and relational in nature. This focus can cause leaders to overlook the less...

First published on the Huffington Post.

What's the quickest way to get thrown out of a Publix supermarket? Is it a) to run naked through the aisles, b) to point and yell 'horsemeat!' at the deli counter or c) to query the manager about whether workers picking tomatoes are treated as well as she'd like. In my case, it was option c). As soon as I broached the question, I was told to leave immediately or security would be called. I was swiftly ushered out.

I wondered whether, perhaps, I'd committed a faux-pas. I speak English with a British accent, and feared that 'tom-ah-to' might mean something horrible and offensive in Florida. Further investigation suggests that I'd have been kicked to the curb whether I'd said tomahto or tomayto. There are some things one just isn't allowed to do in a Publix supermarket. Asking politely about tomato farmworker justice is one of them.

Yet there's good reason to wonder. Farmworkers have long faced brutal working conditions. Rampant violations of minimum wage laws, below-poverty annual incomes, pesticide exposure, sexual harassment,...

Three adults squatted in the cereal aisle of the Key Foods grocery store in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Each had plucked a different kind of oatmeal from one of the lower shelves. They were trying to determine which was the most healthful and the most affordable.

It shouldn’t have been that hard. And yet, it took a good five minutes for three smart grown-ups to analyze the serving sizes, sugar and sodium contents and the price per unit before they could settle on a 2-pound-10-ounce drum of old-fashioned oats. It contained no sodium or sugar and was $1.06 cheaper per pound than the runner-up, a smaller box of quick oats.

It has become conventional wisdom that Americans don’t know how cook. But shopping for food, especially on a budget, is for many an equally daunting prospect. In a world where busy schedules mean that reheating a frozen pizza counts as cooking, shopping smart might be even more important.

Helping shoppers make good decisions was the goal of this supermarket tour. It was part of a course called Cooking Matters at the Store, developed by anti-hunger organization Share Our Strength. The tours explore how to buy fruits and vegetables on a budget, how to read food labels and how to identify whole grains and compare unit prices. In 2012, 21,000 low-income adults attended a tour in 46 states; 68 percent of them were receiving some kind of federal food assistance.

Read the ...