The United States honors and celebrates African Americans’ rich cultural legacy in February each year. It also recognizes their struggles and victories, which have played a crucial role in the history and prosperity of our country.
I share some of my journey to improve nutrition security and health justice through public service and highlight ways I hope everyone of you might join me in these efforts, as a means to honor those who came before me and build a brighter future for my three girls. Ernest C. Jackson, Sr., my late father, was the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Change’s director of community empowerment. I benefited as a child from the Civil Rights movement’s accomplishments.
The governor’s mansion is located in the affluent neighborhood of Buckhead, where I went to school. Every school day, I boarded the bus in my small Adamsville neighborhood, where there weren’t many eateries offering nutritious meals, in order to travel to a charming neighborhood with lots of food options. Adamsville lacked fancy eateries, but we still had each other. Using food from Mr.
Bell’s neighborhood produce truck, our local supermarket, or our own garden, my mother made sure our meals were abundant in vegetables. I consider myself very fortunate to have grown up in a community where friends and neighbors cared for and watched out for one another.
I was ignorant at the time about the ways that variations in our ability to access wholesome grocery stores influenced not just our overall health but also our overall quality of life. I am proud to carry on my parents’ and my neighbors’ legacy by focusing on nutrition security and making sure that everyone in this nation has fair and consistent access to a wide range of nutritious, safe, and reasonably priced food options.
It’s a delight to revisit my origins in my work at USDA and develop my capacity to interact with people from many backgrounds and stages of life. So let’s work together to promote food and nutrition security. Please join me. We can all put on our pretend bags and “get on the bus” to make sure that no child ever questions why there aren’t any healthful food options in their community.
One in four Americans currently receives aid from the USDA’s 16 federal nutrition assistance programs. And with your assistance, we can stop ZIP codes from determining life expectancy and reach even more people. We can work together to make sure that everyone in this nation has the opportunity to prosper.