Community Centered Solutions

On the first weekend of May 2026 at Fern Street Missionary Baptist Church in East Knoxville, Tennessee, we, alongside our community partners Battlefield Farm & Gardens and Women With Vision, hosted a space where folks with ties to East Knoxville could workshop solutions to combat Food Apartheid affecting the community in the area.
 
East Knoxville is a historically Black/African-American area that was able to build strong social cohesion and economic wealth throughout the 20th century–despite Jim Crow and rampant discrimination. The food system consisted of thriving small businesses, grocery stores, and small home gardens. However, East Knoxville’s social fabrics and businesses were harmed due to destructive Urban Renewal policies, redlining, and other mechanisms of disinvestment. Corporate grocery stores did not see the area as profitable enough to invest in. The result was a lack of food access that is leading to higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and other chronic health issues in the area. This insidious phenomenon occurring in most low-income Black communities across the country is referred to as ‘Food Apartheid’ or structural lack of access to food based on race.
 

Neighbors, growers, organizers, and families gathered for the East Knox Food Town Hall to name what’s not working in our food system and imagine what could. We talked honestly about rising prices, transportation barriers, and lack of access. We dreamed out loud about community-led grocery stores, home and community gardens, and policy that reflects what East Knox actually needs. Folks shared their ideas on big sticky notes on the wall and through storytelling as we passed around the mic during a public forum period.

 

We had a diverse array of voices in the room–elders, younger folks, newer neighbors in the East Knoxville area (brought to the area mostly due to gentrification) and long standing residents. While everyone’s voice was necessary and important in creating solutions, the goal of the space was to center the ideas and sentiments of elders and livelong East Knoxvillians.
 
Through our time strategizing and working together as a collective it became evident that East Knoxville has the all the wisdom, skills, and care needed to build a healthier, more nourishing foodscape.