Seven Generations: A Food Justice Lesson from Native Americans

Ebony: 2/26/14

Monifa Bandele on the Navajo Nation’s battle with junk food—and what we can learn from their efforts

This may be your story too. My great great great grandmother, Americos, was an enslaved Native American woman in North Carolina during the mid 1800s. Along with some of her African co-captives, she escaped bondage, traveled north, and settled in Rocky Mount, Virginia where she met and married one of my great grandfathers, Stephen Tyree. Eventually, they left the grips of the South, and our family’s post-slavery history began in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the late 1800s. Their story was not unlike many stories of Native and African people living and struggling together in search of a better life, freedom, and justice.

For the most part, African Americans and Native Americans share a common history; forced captivity, relocation, and wholesale oppression. For centuries, that history has impacted our economic, political, and physical health and wellness. And for centuries, we have shared our experiences, strategies and solutions.  Read more