Civil Rights Gumbo From A Bottom Up Roux

Buddy Jones reminisces about good times in the early sixties, the civil rights movement and gathering friends to collaborate on making a great gumbo. This was a bottom up, community-building activity that reminded him of Pope Francis and how he was always working from the bottom up to help people.

For Great Gumbo, start with: Lea Chase

The story of Leah Chase reads like a social history of New Orleans. Creole-born across Lake Pontchartrain, she started waitressing in 1941—part of the first group of female servers in the French Quarter—when the men were off at war. In '46, she began working at her in-laws' restaurant, Dooky Chase's, where jazz greats such as Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, and Sarah Vaughan would congregate.

"There was no place else for them to eat when they came to town," Leah said.

Every year on the Thursday before Easter, she used to cook up to 100 gallons of her Gumbo Z'Herbes, made with nine different types of greens. All people of New Orleans, no matter their religion or skin color, would flock to her gumbo pot en masse.

"The best way to know people is through food," she says. "Get them to talk about food. Talk over food. It might be about food, but you're also talking about issues."

“Her daily joy was not simply cooking, but preparing meals to bring people together,” the family’s statement read. “One of her most prized contributions was advocating for the Civil Rights Movement through feeding those on the front lines of the struggle for human dignity.”

Leah Chase transformed the restaurant bearing her father-in-law’s name from a sandwich shop where black patrons could buy lottery tickets to a refined restaurant where tourists, athletes, musicians — and even presidents — of all races dined.

Dooky Chase’s Restaurant became known as a place where white and black civil rights activists could meet and strategize about voter registration drives or legal cases. Although Chase and her husband were breaking the law by allowing whites and blacks to eat together, police never raided the restaurant.

She would also send food to jailed civil rights leaders, sniffing her nose at the notion of them eating prison food.

Another Civil Rights Ingredient: Pope Francis

For the first time in history, Pope Francis addressed the United States Congress in a joint session.

On Capitol Hill, Pope Francis delivered a speech on the spirit of the United States, noting that “A nation can be considered great when (...) it fosters a culture which enables people to ‘dream’ of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King Jr sought to do”. For the Pope, that “dream continues to inspire us all” because awakens “what is deepest and truest in the life of a people”. And, as he has done on many other occasions, he emphasized that these kinds of dreams are not an end in themselves but “lead to action, to participation, to commitment.”

Pope Francis, like his predecessor, also met the daughter of the African-American Reverend, herself a civil rights activist. This time the audience with Bernice Albertine took place in the Vatican, on March 12, 2018. The meeting was private, but of great significance because it occurred three weeks before the 50th anniversary of the killing of Martin Luther King Jr.

As the Pope wrote in his Message for World Peace Day 2017, Martin Luther King Jr achieved successes against racial discrimination which “will never be forgotten.”

The way this success has been achieved matters just as much as the results themselves. “The decisive and consistent practice of nonviolence,” wrote Pope Francis, “has produced impressive results.”

“Have the courage to go against the tide of this culture of efficiency, this culture of waste. Encountering and welcoming everyone, [building] solidarity—a word that is being hidden by this culture, as if it were a bad word—solidarity and fraternity: these are what make our society truly human.”

Pope Francis

Stories From the Civil Rights Movement - On Whose Shoulders We Stand

In this group you will find stories from remarkable people of all colors and ethnic backgrounds. Americans who played a role in the Civil Rights Movement of the past century. We are currently focused on capturing video stories, first person narratives from Black Lives That Matter. Ordinary Black Americans who have who have demonstrated extraordinary effort toward building their communities. To quote Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, we are in search of "On whose shoulders we stand" and moving forward, "What we stand for." If you are so inspired, please contact me to share your story.

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