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          


©