Food Not Bombs Founder, Keith McHenry, in Venice
By Calvin E
Moss
Keith McHenry, the co-founder of
Food Not Bombs (FNB), visited the weekly Sunday Venice FNB breakfast on August
10. Many years have passed since Keith McHenry and eight others organized the
first collective around a nuclear power plant protest in Cambridge
Mass.
I saw him standing under the pagodas at the
back of the Rose Ave. beach parking lot. Keith McHenry, the creator of the
well-known FNB carrot-in-fist logo, looked out over the beach at the Pacific
Ocean as homeless and poor Venice people gathered for the Sunday breakfast in
the Rose Ave. parking lot. A warm ocean breeze blew over the sand as this
exceptional person, a direct descendant of our county’s founders
(McHenry’s Great Great Grandfather, James McHenry, signed the original
U.S. Constitution.), stood beaded and wearing a large brim hat. He was waiting
for us to arrive with our hot vegetarian breakfast of organic steel cut oat
groats cooked with raisins, assorted hot tea, and hard boiled
eggs.
I met Keith McHenry the night
before at a Los Angeles FNB party. I was excited to meet him at the party,
because we had formed our Food Not Bombs chapter in Venice and Santa Monica to
resist anti-homeless human rights violations and he has been an inspiration to
us. Hundreds of FNB chapters have been formed around the world due to his work.
At the party we spoke about the war, how the country had become a police state,
and the need for universal health care in the United
States.
During our Sunday Peace
breakfast, many homeless people spoke with McHenry and we shared a few stories
about the streets here in Venice. We were joined by the various politicos,
musicians, and artists who table along the Free Speech area of the Venice
Boardwalk. It was our usual Sunday meal, but this time it was shared with Keith
McHenry, a man arrested over 100 times for serving free food in city parks and
beaten up many times by the police for doing non-violent work. In 1995 he was
arrested, framed, and faced 25 years in prison under the California three
strikes law. An international protest was organized, with the support of Amnesty
International, and the charges were
dropped.
After our breakfast ended, I
got a few books and some flyers from McHenry. He then hit the road, leaving
Venice to visit other FNB chapters. Keith McHenry travels all over the country
visiting and speaking about the Food Not Bombs movement - a movement based in
protest against war and poverty in the Americas - with him our hopes, our
dreams, and our ideals.
Posted: Mon - September 1, 2003 at 04:05 PM