Clay Williams and Colleen Vincent had a simple idea: bring Black food creatives together in one space and let the magic of Black community flourish. It was an idea that was sparked by their experience working in food for many years, with Colleen as the Director of Culinary Community Initiatives at the James Beard Foundation and Clay as a noted freelance photojournalist. They would see one another during events at the House or at other industry functions, and would naturally gravitate to one another.
Both of them would come across the same Black folks at these events but would connect in passing. Over the years there would be more brown faces in these rooms and a natural, if informal, community began to take form. What evolved was Black Food Folks.
Launching on Instagram with gorgeous photos captured by Clay, Black Food Folks began as a visual Rolodex of Black creatives. In addition to the feed, there was a robust monthly newsletter that offered job listings, community news, and a growing list of resources directly to inboxes.
Over the first year, there were nationwide meetups, curated talks in collaboration with other industry organizations like the Food Writers Workshop and the James Beard Foundation, and a growing urgency to activate the collective. During their one-year anniversary party last year, there was a sense of momentum and joy that felt kinetic, and there were a whole host of forthcoming projects and initiatives planned for that coming year—then COVID-19 hit.
Black Food Folks Meetup in 2020. Photo: Clay Williams
For so many in the collective, the world stopped. The food world was at once essential and forgotten and depending on what space you occupied, your reality was changed overnight. For the first month, we were in shock, simply trying to regain footing—but the power of Black Food Folks was that it operated precisely as it was intended. The network activated and immediately became a resource hub. It was a virtual phone tree that offered a lifeline to community members in need of information on anything from navigating unemployment to resources sharing on the ever-shifting COVID-19 city guidelines for operation.
Yemi Amu, founder and Executive Director of Oko Farms, was someone who found solace in the Black Food Folks community during this time. “As a Black farmer in NYC, I often feel like I exist in isolation,” she says. “Clay and Colleen made me feel seen by giving me a platform to talk about my work. I am now part of a supportive and uplifting community.”
One of the most fortuitous shifts for the Black Food Folks community was the live community check-ins. Instagram had just begun to allow dual guests in live videos and allowed the videos to be saved to the feed. Clay and Colleen capitalized on this by chatting with other food folks and quickly recruited community members to join in hosting duties. Many creatives—who a month before had been unreachable working 80 hour weeks—were suddenly at home and found solace and respite in hosting and consuming the growing roster of programming.
Colleen Vincent and Clay Williams. Photo: Christian Rodriguez
I hosted a collaborative program with AfroPunk called The Politics of Food where I spoke with farmers, food justice activists, chefs, and government officials about the impact of COVID on food and policy. There was the dynamic team of Chefs Mavis-Jay Sanders and Sicily Johnson of Food Plus People with their The Drink Tank where they would talk pop culture, industry shenanigans and do it all with charm, humor, chemistry, and a cocktail. Casandra Rosario of Food Before Love would use her vibrant personality and marketing savvy to talk travel, wine, and PR in ways that were both interview and masterclass. Chefs and restaurateurs David and Tonya Thomas would bring their decades of expertise and heartwarming love for one another to the feed talking about partnership, community, and relationships. There was Jackie Summers on Fridays talking wine and spirits, Kayla Stewart, Vonnie Williams, Aretah Ettarh, Osayi Endolyn, Paola Velez, and many others crafting complicated, joyful, and honest conversations with everyone from Dr. Jessica B. Harris to 16-year-old chef Rahanna Bisseret Martinez.
The 200+ episodes represented a small sample of Black people in food and were created by community for community—the result is a living and growing archive of Black thought and Black agency in food during a global event. The impact of this programming is monumental.
Tiffany Rozier, host of the Afros and Knives podcast and founder of Set the Table Media, was profoundly impacted by the body of work created. “Black Food Folks is a model community of Black people who understand the critical role food plays in defining culture,” she says. “As someone who has been building a media platform for many years, she points out the necessity for community buy-in.
The Black Food Folks platform growth quadrupled in just a matter of a few months post-launch. That's partly due to an awakening conscience resulting from too many senseless murders of unarmed Black bodies at a time of heightened tension, and the divisiveness of last summer—but the growth was also due to the way that the platform resonated with viewers and the industry.
Clay chatting in a Black Food Folks Instagram Live talk. Photo: Clay Williams
It became a space for storytelling and for connection in a way that had major brands taking notice and offering community investment. Discover was first, partnering to promote their small business grant initiative which awarded $25,000 grants to small independent restaurants. Next was Talenti, giving Black Food Folks seed money to offer ten $5,000 microgrants to organizations doing important community-based work. Rozier and Amu were both recipients of these grants and the funds they received made a huge impact on the future of their work.
The Talenti partnership also had Clay and Colleen thinking about the next steps for Black Food Folks beyond the pandemic. For them, that’s growing Black Food Folks into other forms of media. Amber Mayfield, CEO and executive editor of While Entertaining Magazine, is a part of the team helping to move Black Food Folks into this new era of storytelling. “The Black Food Folks community has been an awesome gateway to building relationships with like-minded food pros, as a recipient of their 2020 grant (awarded in collaboration with Talenti),” she says.
“BFF has also helped me bring my annual food magazine, While Entertaining, to print, adding us to the list of the few Black-owned food magazines available in print. Launching the magazine was an entirely self-funded endeavor until I was awarded this grant, so I’m very grateful and excited to have BFF in my corner as I continue to grow.”
This next step for Black Food Folks is podcasting with a limited, six-episode series called Black Desserts, launching Thursday, March 25, 2020. You can follow Black Food Folks on Instagram for more details!