Anarchistcook’s Weblog

The first Food Not Bombs soup line – March 26, 1981

The founders of Food Not Bombs spent the evening of March 25, 1981, busy preparing a 60 quart pot of soup and other goodies for the next day’s street theater outside the stockholders meeting of the Bank of Boston. 

Ronald Reagan just took office promising his Trickle Down economic theory and a ratcheting up of America’s nuclear deterrent. The board of directors of the bank also sat on the boards of Raytheon and other nuclear industry heavy weights. They had invested in our target, the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station, a project that local activists like ourselves had been attempting to stop.

Our plan was to dress as Depression era hobos, set up a soup line and hand out literature warning that if the policies of the bank and those of Reagan were to be implemented people would find themselves seeking meals at a soup kitchen. Our young enthusiastic crew wanted to shock and believed the sight of people lining up to eat outside the Federal Reserve Bank might jolt some people into action.

But as we prepared our vegan stew we became concerned that we had not done enough outreach to have a line of faux hobos necessary for the intended impact.  We also had a lot of food and didn’t want to waste it so two of us went to the only homeless shelter in Boston late that evening. 

I knocked on the door of the Pine Street Inn a little after mid-night. The manager welcomed us in when we explained our intentions. He lead us to a room where twenty or thirty men sat on the tile benches or laid out on the floor. I explained the purpose of the action. One guy noted with excitement that it reminded him of the protests in the sixties. His bench mate added his support assuring us he would participate. 

Sure enough the men arrived outside the Federal Reserve Bank the next day at noon. A business man walked up to me shocked that it had only taken a couple months of Reaganomics before the poverty of his policies had resulted in the need for food lines. “You are likely to see a lot more hunger if we don’t start organizing now,” I responded. Some of those attending the stockholders meeting cursed us but one blue haired lady gave us the thumbs up. “Yes, these guys are crooks and I plan to vote against their proxy,” she smiled.

I remember that first man who reached out to receive his bowl of soup. “God bless you,” he quietly prayed as his eyes lit up with gratitude, “you should do this everyday. There is no food for us here in Boston.”

So that evening as we cleaned up from our first soup line we agreed to quit our jobs and spend our days recovering food that we would deliver to housing projects and share meals with the public at Harvard Square or Park Street Station. 

Forty years later I have to remind people that there were no tent cities and we only saw an occasional unhoused person. There was that lady bound in black garbage bags who propped her self on the stairs of the building next to the symphony and the huddle of men who sat in a dark ally near the Naked Eye.  We had a system that provided housing, affordable education and wages while meager still made it possible to rent an apartment.

Fast forward to today.The governments and their corporate sponsors left Americans to fend for themselves as the Congress showered wealthiest one percent with trillions of our tax dollars. 

The total corporate capture of society was ushered in with the inauguration of the new administration. Americans are embracing the censorship of an army of disinformation specialists funded by the military and social media titans. We are repeatedly told the $1,400 check and child tax credit will lift us out of poverty. Critics are de-platformed, fired and ridiculed. A sea of cheery propaganda insults those struggling to survive and mocks those pointing out the obvious fact that no one can pay twelve months rent with a child tax credit and their stimulus check. Its become rule by headline. The fear of Trump, COVID and poverty has Americans celebrating the implementation of the corporate police state.  

Millions of Americans are facing eviction as hedge funds and shell companies rush to park their billions in luxury condominiums developments that are unlikely and not intended to be occupied. Families selling their homes are finding it impossible to buy another house because deep pocket investment companies are always able to out bid them. Property speculators are scooping up the failed businesses. Millions of Americans had already been forced live on our streets, in our parks, hotels, cars and couches before the pandemic. Empty apartment units still outnumber the unhoused even as the numbers of people find themselves dumped on to the streets.

Even though soup lines have become common place there is hope in the memory of a time before people lived in tents.  But under the current clampdown on ideas and expropriation of resources this will be challenging. This is where Food Not Bombs and our allies can make a difference. Since we are not welcome in the advancing global economic paradigm it is up to us to create our own society outside their walls.