Lolis Eric Elie

“That year, I was converted to John Egerton's vision of the South and the Southern Foodways Alliance's role in it.
His book, Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South, chronicles the prehistory of his ideal. He will detail this philosophy from the podium, but he articulates it best for you at Ajax Diner or Off Square Books after he has feasted well in the company of old friends and we have all drunk deeply from the Jack Daniels bottle. He will tell you that ours is a large table stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Washington, D.C., from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mexican border. He will tell you that this coming together at our table and the breaking of our various breads is an act of defiance. It is a speaking now, mouth full and spirit nourished, against the days when certain feet, those deemed too dark or too dirty, were violently
separated from this supper. He will tell you that this fried chicken, these sweet potato pies are related to regular food in much the same way as communion hosts are related to regular white bread.”
― Lolis Eric Elie, Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue