By Keith McHenry & C.T. Lawrence Butler

In 1980 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, seven anti-nuclear activists started a collective that came to be known as Food Not Bombs. They recovered surplus food and distributed it to housing projects, daycare centers, and battered women’s shelters. They also prepared vegetarian meals and shared it along with their literature at protests. For over 25 years, this small experiment has grown into a worldwide movement with hundreds of autonomous chapters active on every continent, with the exception of Antarctica.

The Food Not Bombs movement is unique in many ways. It’s rare for political movements to cross so many national boundaries and cultures. It’s unusual for a grassroots progressive movement to survive 25 years and still be entirely grassroots. From the beginning, Food Not Bombs was multi-issue and encouraged the public and activists to see that all social injustices are connected.

Each chapter shares the unifying principles of Food Not Bombs: a commitment to non-violent action, sharing free vegetarian food to anyone without restriction, and making decisions by participatory democracy or consensus. Food Not Bombs has no headquarters or leaders and every volunteer has a say in the decisions of their local group. This leads to a strong sense of responsibility for the actions of the group and pride in what they accomplish. These lessons are often spread to other kinds of community organizing efforts.

The seven people that started Food Not Bombs were united by the events of May 24, 1980. On that day, over 4,000 activists with the Coalition for Direct Action at Seabrook made an attempt to occupy the Seabrook Nuclear Power Generating Station to non-violently stop construction by putting their bodies in front of the bulldozers. As affinity groups cut holes in the fence surrounding the construction site, clouds of teargas filled the air, National Guard troops rushed through the fence, beating everyone they could. Helicopters hovered above as the activists struggled to occupy the site. The next day, Boston University law student Brian Feigenbaum (eventually another founding member of Food Not Bombs) was arrested for assaulting a police officer, allegedly hitting him with a grappling hook. Concerned about Brian’s legal problems, a core group of about 30 activists formed to support his legal defense. Out of this effort grew the collective that started Food Not Bombs.

To raise money for Feigenbaum’s legal defense, the collective set up literature tables and sold baked goods outside Boston University and in Harvard Square, but sales were slow. An idea emerged that street theater might help. They had a poster that stated, “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.” The group bought military uniforms at an army surplus store, set the poster next to their table and pretended to be generals trying to sell baked goods to buy a bomber. Eventually, the charges against Brian were dropped for lack of evidence.

Next, the collective decided to organize a protest with the message that the financial backing of Seabrook had links to the First National Bank of Boston. Many of the same people who were on the board of the Bank, which was financing the nuke, were also on the board of the utility that decided to build the nuke; many also sat on the board of the construction company building it. To the activists, this looked like the business practices that resulted in the Great Depression. To protest, activists planned to dress as Depression-era hobos and set up a soup line outside the bank’s annual stockholders meeting in the financial district of downtown Boston.

The night before, worried that they might not have enough people to have a soup line, they went to the Pine Street Inn, the largest homeless shelter downtown, to talk about the protest and invite the homeless for lunch. The next day, activists set up a soup kitchen outside the Federal Reserve Bank where the board meeting was being held and, to their surprise, over 50 homeless people joined them for lunch. Many people stopped, had a bite to eat, and talked with the homeless and activists about the reasons for the protest.

While cleaning up, the seven activists decided that distributing food could be a great way to organize for peace, the environment, and social justice. It wasn’t long before they had rented a house together and started a regular network of food collection and distribution sites. They picked up muffins and bread at “made fresh daily” bakeries, produce and tofu at health food stores, and surplus stock from the food co-op. Each weekday, within hours of collecting the food, they delivered it to battered women’s shelters, alcoholic rehabilitation centers, immigrant support centers, and, once a week, to each of the housing projects in Cambridge and some in Boston.

They set up a table in Harvard Square and gave away flyers about social issues. The nights were spent spray-painting graffiti for peace. Outside grocery stores they painted the slogan, “Drop Food Not Bombs.” Eventually, this was shortened and became the name of the group.

In the first two years, Food Not Bombs focused on its literature and food tables, bulk food distribution, and building momentum for the June 12, 1982 action “March for Nuclear Disarmament” in New York City. Food Not Bombs co-sponsored, with the Cambridge City Council, three marches against nuclear arms. On Hiroshima Day, one volunteer burned the Boston phone book to dramatize that everyone listed would burn in a nuclear attack. In May 1982, the collective organized a “Free Concert for Nuclear Disarmament” in Cambridge. There was plenty of free food for everyone and bands representing the ethnic mixture of Cambridge performed. There was an area with activities for kids of all ages called “The Land of the Younger Self” organized by Su Eaton, another founding member of Food Not Bombs.

Over the next several years, the collective also helped organize direct actions to end the war in El Salvador, including one where 500 people were arrested for holding a “town meeting” in the lobby of the Boston Federal Building. They also participated at a sit-in at the Federal Court against the draft and organized the Boston Pee Party, a protest against drug testing. Another action they helped organize was a protest against a “weapons bazaar” at a hotel in downtown Boston. This is an event where U.S. corporations promote the sale of weapons to the military of other countries.

During the mid-1980s, Food Not Bombs continued collecting hundreds of pounds of surplus food every day. During the week, they would distribute it to area housing projects, progressive social service agencies, battered woman’s shelters, and hunger relief agencies. These groups would receive this food once a week and be responsible for distributing it.

A second Food Not Bombs group started in 1988 in San Francisco. Keith McHenry (co-author of this article), along with two San Francisco activists, realizing there was no free lunch service for the homeless on Mondays, set up a food table at Golden Gate Park at the foot of Haight Street. On August 15, 1988, this small group of dedicated Food Not Bombs activists was surprised when 45 riot police arrested 9 volunteers. Undaunted, they returned the next Monday and so did the riot police. By Labor Day, over 100 volunteers had been arrested. News of these arrests made CNN, the London Times, and many other media outlets. Facing a crisis, Mayor Art Agnos met with members of Food Not Bombs, the ACLU, city officials, and neighborhood activists. Under pressure, he issued a permit and Food Not Bombs returned to the park to share their ideas and food without police interference.

The next summer, police started a campaign to arrest the homeless for sleeping in the city parks. After several days of hearing stories about people on the street being soaked by fire hoses and losing their sleeping bags, blankets, and personal belongings, Food Not Bombs decided to help organize against police attacks. The homeless felt isolated and fearful living and sleeping in the city parks and streets so they started gravitating towards Civic Center Plaza across from City Hall. As a tent city grew in the Plaza, Food Not Bombs started a 24-hour a day on-site soup kitchen there. The homeless organized concerts, dances, and rallies every weekday at noon. In response, the mayor opened an additional shelter declaring that all the homeless now had a place to stay and ordered the arrest of any of the homeless unwilling to sleep in this shelter. For many, though, the shelter was not an option. Families, women, and people with pets were not allowed to stay at the new shelter. The tent city continued until Food Not Bombs activists were arrested (again) and homeless people were driven out, supposedly so a carnival, sponsored by the mayor’s office, could move into the park.

Following this experience, Food Not Bombs decided to continue serving food in Civic Center Plaza every day at lunch and dinner. The group organized a system where volunteers with a small amount of soup and bread would arrive and be arrested. Then another group of volunteers with a half bucket of soup and a few more loaves of bread would arrive and they would be arrested. While the police were busy dealing with the people they had arrested, the rest of the food would arrive and Food Not Bombs would feed everyone who came to eat. In a strategy designed to build community support, Food Not Bombs invited members of other groups to serve free food and risk arrest. Members of unions, church groups, and other political organizations volunteered. Nuns and priests were arrested, labor organizers were jailed, but when members of the National Lawyers Guild shared food, the police arrested the people eating and left the lawyers alone.

On October 5, 1989 at 5:05 PM San Francisco shook with the largest earthquake since 1909. Rice and beans were cooking on the stove when the gas and electricity went out. Food Not Bombs had propane tanks and stoves so the volunteers loaded up the truck and set up a field kitchen outside City Hall. This time when the police arrived, they joined the soup line and had a bite to eat and the arrests ended for the rest of Mayor Agnos’s term.

In 1992, on the 500th anniversary of Columbus arriving in the new world, Food Not Bombs held its first national gathering. At the time, there were approximately 30 cities with Food Not Bombs chapters, mostly on the west coast. Around 75 people came to the gathering, including several volunteers from Food Not Bombs chapters in Canada. Grassroots punk rock bands, such as Good Riddance, Propagandi, MDC, Green Day, and other bands put information about Food Not Bombs in their lyrics and liner notes. In addition, the Internet became a major tool for spreading the word. Groups started in Melbourne, Australia, Prague, Czechoslovakia, Montreal, Canada, and London, England, to mention a few.

Not long after the Food Not Bombs gathering in 1992, there was an election in San Francisco and the former chief of police, Frank Jordan, was elected mayor. He started what he called the “Quality of Life Enforcement Matrix Program.” Although claiming to “help” homeless people achieve a better quality of life, the program was another attempt to rid the city of homeless people. Food Not Bombs volunteers organized protests. In retaliation, the mayor ordered the arrest of Food Not Bombs activists, even though it was legal to feed the homeless. The City was able to get a restraining order and volunteers started being arrested and charged with “felony conspiracy to share free food in violation of a court order.”

Because local media outlets would not report Food Not Bombs’ side of the story, some volunteers arranged a meeting with Steven Dunnifer, who was operating a low-power FM radio station called Free Radio Berkeley. From this meeting, two additional unlicensed, low-power or “pirate” radio stations were started by Food Not Bombs volunteers in San Francisco. The Federal Communications Commission tried to shut down the stations, but this only encouraged more people to start their own stations.

Food Not Bombs also started a squatter’s movement with the San Francisco Tenants Union called Homes Not Jails. The first Homes Not Jails action was to occupy an empty hotel across from the Glide Memorial Church on Thanksgiving. As the mayor arrived to cut the turkey at Glide’s soup kitchen, activists dropped banners declaring housing as a human right, as stated in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Homes Not Jails was able to house many homeless people in empty buildings, including occupying abandoned buildings in the Presidio, a former army base near Golden Gate Park.

On January 1, 1994, the state of California instituted a law known as “Three Strikes,” which meant that anyone convicted of three major felony charges was automatically sentenced to at least 25 years in jail with a maximum of life in prison. On January 4, 1994 Keith McHenry was arrested on a bogus felony charge. In May he was charged with another 2 bogus felony charges and faced 25 years to life in prison.

Meanwhile, Food Not Bombs volunteers were arrested every day for sharing information and food. Often, during the arrests, the police beat the volunteers and in a few cases, tortured them. C.T. Butler was regularly attacked by the police. Because of the frequency of these attacks, there is even video footage of him being tortured by the police using “pain compliance techniques” while being ordered to stand up even though police officers were kneeling on his back and legs. Volunteers often suffered beatings and torture techniques used by the Special Operations Unit of the San Francisco Police. Sometimes, activists were sent to the psychiatric ward, tied down to a bed, and drugged.

Things had gotten so bad, Amnesty International declared Food Not Bombs volunteers Prisoners of Conscience in advance if they were ever sentenced to jail. The United Nations Human Rights Commission started an investigation into human rights violations against the group.

Once freed from his Three Strikes case (the city failed to get a conviction on any of the charges), McHenry toured North America and Europe helping promote Food Not Bombs. In 1995, the Rent Is Theft Tour introduced people in 50 cities to a vegan cooking demonstration, set-up and broadcast the program on a low-powered FM radio station, and helped organize local Food Not Bombs and Homes Not Jails chapters.

When it was announced that the WTO would meet in Seattle in November 1999, Food Not Bombs chapters around the country mobilized. Thousands came to Seattle to “shut it down,” participating in the now famous “Battle of Seattle.”

By 2000, Food Not Bombs activists were cooking for big anti-globalization actions in Europe and the Americas. In Australia they helped free refugees from a detention center. German chapters helped with “Border Camps” and “Castor Nuclear Waste Blockades.” Chapters started in Argentina in response to the collapse of their economy and other chapters joined in “Anti-McDonalds Day” protests on October 16 outside McDonalds all over the world.

In the months before the attack on Afghanistan, and later Iraq, chapters fed peace activists at protests in Budapest, Belgrade, Warsaw, Poznan, Amsterdam, Kula Lumpur, Sidney, Washington, DC, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Tucson, and dozens of other cities.

In 2004, documentary filmmaker Elizabeth Tadic followed McHenry on a tour of North America, Europe, and the Middle East to see how the movement was evolving. They learned about Copenhagen Food Not Bombs winning the Danish Peace Award and discovered six cities in Croatia that had Food Not Bombs chapters. Slovakian National TV and radio covered their visit to Bratislava where they learned that Food Not Bombs had started animal rescue shelters in 20 cities. In Israel, Food Not Bombs volunteers joined Anarchists Against the Wall in cutting through a gate in the “Iron Curtain” between Palestine and Israel while being shot at by the Israeli Defense Forces.

Food Not Bombs chapters from towns all over Ireland brought food to Shannon Airbase to protest the Iraq War. Chapters in Mexico served food at anti-globalization protests in Cancun and Guadala- jara. Eleven Food Not Bombs volunteers were arrested and beaten at the Guadalajara protest, which generated worldwide protest.

In June 2005, in the days before the Biodemocracy 2005: Reclaim the Commons! protest, Food Not Bombs activists from all over the world will meet in Philadelphia to talk about the future of the movement—how can Food Not Bombs help change the world for the better? As a hub of social activism, Food Not Bombs volunteers will likely start micro-banks, community gardens, info shops, bike repair collectives, wind generation centers, and community health centers. They will encourage the creation of neighborhood affinity groups and spokescouncil meetings, making decisions by consensus. They will organize the community to make sure that everyone has a right to food, clothing, housing, healthcare, education, and a good job. Food Not Bombs groups in Eastern Europe are already building democratic, peaceful communities of hope. Food Not Bombs will feed people protesting the Bio-Tech Conference, where the bio-tech industry will display and promote biological weapons, environmentally destructive genetically modified agriculture, and other dangerous products.

Because of the grassroots and non-hierarchical nature of each chapter, Food Not Bombs activists have solid connections within local communities. Together, Food Not Bombs volunteers are becoming experienced in cooperative action and collective decision making. They are generating the spirit and vision needed to create a new world. This simple movement, which started in 1980 with a vision and no money or leaders, is creating a society based on peace, participatory democracy and guaranteeing the basic human rights of every person. Food Not Bombs activists are showing the world that food is a right, not a privilege. Food, not bombs.
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Keith McHenry and C.T. Lawrence Butler are co-founders of FNB. Butler lives in Takoma Park, Maryland and teaches community groups, governments, and associations all over the world. McHenry lives in Tucson, Arizona where he maintains www.foodnotbombs.net and helps start new chapters.