A recent documentary, Roots of Resilience: East Knoxville’s Black Food Renaissance from filmmaker Ronald Levy, tells the story of the organization Rooted East. The Black-led food justice nonprofit is fighting deeply rooted food apartheid and advancing food justice in East Knoxville, Tennessee.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Access Research Atlas, all eight of East Knoxville’s census tracts are designated low income, low food access areas. Rooted East Founder Femeika Elliott describes an abundance of convenience stores and liquor stores in the area and points to the historic redlining and displacement of Black residents that led to this. “You can’t make a salad anywhere in East Knoxville,” she tells Food Tank, demonstrating the importance of advancing food justice.

“We heard a lot of talk about food insecurity and food deserts within the city, but nobody was talking about food apartheid,” Elliott explains. “Food apartheid is strategic. When we found out what to name this, which is food apartheid, we were like, it’s time to get to work.”

Elliott founded the organization with pastor-turned-gardener Chris Battle in 2022. Battle was using a converted minibus to distribute fresh produce from his urban farm throughout East Knoxville. Although the community was grateful for the produce, Elliot says, “they wanted somebody to teach them how to grow their own food.” The first Rooted East meeting included only six people, gathered in a private kitchen.

Since then, Rooted East has focused on using garden education and land partnerships to create a self-sustaining food system. The organization teaches people how to grow food using ancestral wisdom and reparative agriculture techniques, feeding into their mission of “establishing a community led and hyper local food system,” according to Elliott. She describes positive results of their efforts including reports from new gardeners about improved mental, physical, and emotional health.

Rooted East values contributions from elders who grew food before discriminatory policies in the 20th century created the food apartheid seen today. “We had community elders who were doing food justice work,” Elliott explains. “They were farmers, they were gardeners, they tended to the lands. They did a lot of skill sharing to preserve community sufficiency.”

Read the full article about fighting food apartheid by Vincent Leggett at Food Tank.