UWM Geographer Examines Milwaukee's Black Panther Party's War on Hunger in Nov. 3 Lecture

Nik Heynen, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), will examine the history and effects of anti-hunger politics when he delivers the 36th annual Morris Fromkin Memorial Lecture, “Starving for Revolution: The Milwaukee Black Panther Party's Struggle to Feed the Hungry.”

The lecture is on Thursday, Nov. 3, at 4:30 p.m. in the Golda Meir Library Fourth Floor Conference Center. The event is free and open to the public.

Heynen's address claims the Panthers' efforts were important not only because they challenged Milwaukeeans to face that hunger among poor children existed, but also because the programs they inspired eventually became Milwaukee's Hunger Task Force, one of two large food banks in the region and an institutional advocate for hunger relief.

Heynen further suggests that the Panthers' free breakfast for children program, through the combined efforts of the 45 Party chapters across the nation, became the model for all free breakfast and lunch programs for children at public schools throughout the nation.

“Thirty years on, the public image of the Black Panthers remains that of blacks organizing so they could carry guns for self-defense,” says Heynen. “But everyone I talked to said this (free breakfast programs) was the most important thing they did.” Heynen has so far interviewed 27 former Panthers from Milwaukee, Chicago, Boston, New Haven and Oakland about the group's social activities during the 1960s and '70s.

He began some of the work for his lecture project while volunteering for an advocacy committee of the Hunger Task Force called Voice Against Hunger (VAH).

Today, the VAH is pushing for a universal free breakfast program at all public schools in Milwaukee. It's a notion that could be funded with federal money, he says, and would end the stigma attached to kids who sign up for free or reduced breakfast programs.

“Wisconsin is ranked last in engaging in free and reduced breakfast programs,” he says. “If everyone is eligible, it takes away the stigma of participating.”

The Fromkin grant assists UWM scholars in conducting research on individuals, groups, movements and ideas that have influenced the quest for social justice and human rights. It is an outgrowth of the Morris Fromkin Memorial Collection at the UWM Libraries, established in 1970 in memory of the Milwaukee attorney and immigrant noted for his interest in social justice, his legal work for the labor movement, and his pro bono work for the poor.

For more information on this year's lecture, or to arrange for special needs, call 414-229-6202.

###