In 2023, Governor Tim Walz signed a bill offering free breakfast and lunch to Minnesota’s schoolchildren. However, while Walz’s new role as the Democratic vice presidential pick has brought national recognition to his support for a national food policy, this win isn’t his alone. It might not have happened at all without Valerie Castile.
After police killed her son Philando in 2016, Valerie Castile learned he was beloved at the school where he worked because everyone knew he covered the meals of students who couldn’t afford food. To continue his legacy, she founded the Philando Castile Relief Foundation.
The foundation raised nearly $300,000 to clear Minnesota’s school lunch debt. Castile met with Walz’s predecessor, Governor Mark Dayton, to discuss universal free meals. Three senators, including Clare Oumou Verbeten, participated in the conversation. But if we consider our history, this work began even earlier.
Black movements have always cared about food justice, from church dinners to Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farm Cooperative. Before the federal School Breakfast Program was permanently authorized in 1975, we had the Black Panthers. And though inspired by radical initiatives, the state’s free meals often leave much to be desired.
Champions like Valerie Castile remind us that, even without politicians like Tim Walz, Black communities rise to the occasion to meet our needs. These ideas and wins aren’t the state’s. They are the people’s flexes.