Malik Yakini grew up eating from his grandfather's garden. Like many young Black men of his generation, Yakini’s grandfather migrated from Georgia to Detroit to work at the Ford Rouge plant.
But more than vegetables, Yakini’s favorite food as a young child was chiltins. That is, until he heard a recording of Malcolm X’s “Message to the Grassroots” speech as a young teen. That speech, delivered in Detroit on Nov. 10, 1963, outlined X’s Black nationalist philosophy. In it, he talked about the “house Negro” and the “field Negro,” comparing their roles during slavery to Black folks in the civil rights struggle.
“The Negro in the field didn’t get nothing but what was left of the insides of the hog. They call ’em “chitt’lin’” nowadays. In those days they called them what they were: guts. That’s what you were — a gut-eater. And some of you all still gut-eaters,” Malcolm X said in the speech.
“This had a huge impact on me when I heard this for the first time at 13, because my very favorite food in the world was chitlins,” Yakini said.
A link between food and liberation
By the mid-1970s, Yakini went vegetarian, and later became a vegan. Yakini began to organize for Black liberation, but it would take years before he connected that fight to food sovereignty.
He’s now been working towards food sovereignty for Black folks in Detroit for decades. He describes food sovereignty as the condition that exists when a community can define and shape the system that provides their food.
“What we see now in Detroit's Black community is that 99% of the food that we consume comes to us from outside of our community,” Yakini said. “It is sold to us by people who don't live in our community, and far too often who are not respectful of the people in the community.”
Yakini is the executive director of the Detroit Black Community Sovereignty Network. That organization is helping open the Detroit People’s Food Co-op, a new Black-led and Black-owned grocery store that is scheduled to open in May. The grocery store will be on the first floor of a building owned by Develop Detroit Inc and DBCSN, withs a banquet hall and community kitchens on the second floor.
"We're getting local produce in the store, selling it locally.”Malik Yakini says the Detroit People's Food Co-Op aims to keep profits in the community it serves.
Right now, the Detroit People’s Food Co-Op — which has signed up 2,000 members — is mostly empty. But soon it’ll have shelves, and fridges and rows and rows of fresh local produce. It’ll also have a salad bar, a hot foods bar, and a commercial kitchen.
The produce and a lot of the products that will be sold in the store will come from Detroit’s Black farmers and other local farms.
“So what we're trying to do is create a closed loop system so that we're getting local produce in the store, selling it locally, the profits that are made from that are going to employ people from the neighborhood who work in the store,” Yakini said. “And we're keeping that money in the community, as opposed to the kind of extractive economy that we see happening in the food system right now.”
Yakini said part of that work of creating food sovereignty meant owning the land the co-op sits on. And they wanted it to be Black-led so at every step: The building was designed and built by Black-owned firms.
A historic fight
Yakini is part of a long lineage of Detroiters fighting for food access.
In the 1890s, former Detroit Mayor Hazen Stuart Pingree created potato patches and vegetable gardens on vacant land to help feed poor families. A century later, former Mayor Coleman Young created a “Farm-a-Lot” program that gave families seeds to start gardens that were supposed to be able to feed a family of four. Around that same time, the Nation of Islam — which was founded in Detroit — worked to create its own Black-controlled food system by establishing restaurants, purchasing farmland, and even starting a fish-import operation. The ventures were part of the Nation’s efforts to develop an economically self-sufficient Black community.
These days, almost 70% of Detroiters are considered “food insecure,” meaning they don’t have enough to eat, according to a 2022 report from the Detroit Food Policy Council.
That report found that in 2021, there were over 60 grocery stores in the 139-mile city of Detroit. It said income, time and transportation all contribute to access to healthy foods in Detroit.
“Based on our analysis of history and our analysis of the current situation, the reason we have continued food insecurity and continued hunger is because we don't have food sovereignty. We don't have control of the system that provides our food,” Yakini said.
"We don't have control of the system that provides our food."Malik Yakini says that lack of control contributes to hunger and food insecurity.
He said he’s been watching development happen in Detroit these past few years, and too few of those projects have been led by Black folks.
“If you look at Detroit and you look at … Woodward Avenue right now, there's a lot of development going on,” Yakini said. “90% of that development is done by wealthy white developers, even though Detroit is an overwhelmingly Black city, probably still close to 80% African-American. But we have very little stake in the development which is happening in our city.”
Yakini said a lot of talk about Black wealth focuses on the individual.
“How do you buy and land? How do you, you know, get 401(K)?” Yakini said. “How do you invest in stocks or whatever so that you can then acquire individual or family wealth and pass that on to the members of your family?”
But he’s focused on collective solutions that prioritize Black-ownership and control over some of the most important things in our lives: Schools. Health care. Housing. And of course, the food we eat.
Detroit People’s Food Coop, 8324 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48202
A previous version of this story did not mention that Develop Detroit Inc. is a co-owner of the Detroit People's Food Co-op.
