182: Elijah Heyward III, International African American Museum (Charleston, SC)

Now, Southern foodways is my professional geography. It's what I know, and it's what eventually lured me away from academia and into the consumer writing space full-time. Race is indelibly a part of Southern foodways, and through the interviews in the five years of this show, discussion about race has intermittently been a part of the Southern Fork. But I'm committing to more consistent conversations about how food can reveal, teach, and instruct in order to acknowledge and heal wounds that have festered too long. This aligns more with both my personal and professional values, so I invite you to continue to sit at the table with me as you have so kindly done thus far. Today I welcome Dr. Elijah Heyward III to help us anchor food as a cultural artifact, and what that means for this time we're in right now. He is a graduate of Hampton University as well as Yale Divinity School and earned his Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of North Carolina. He's currently serving as the Chief Operating Officer for the International African American Museum under construction in Charleston, SC.