USDA
School Breakfast Program
By 1969, the success of the Black Panther's Free Breakfast For Children program had become a matter of U.S. federal policy debate, with the National School Lunch Program administrator admitting in a 1969 U.S. senate hearing that the Panthers were feeding more poor school children than the State of California.[1]
According to History.com:
The public visibility of the Panthers’ breakfast programs put pressure on political leaders to feed children before school. The result of thousands of American children becoming accustomed to free breakfast, former party member Norma Amour Mtume told Eater, was the government expanded its own school food programs. Though the USDA had piloted free breakfast efforts since the mid 1960s, the program only took off in the early 1970s—right around the time the Black Panthers’ programs were dismantled. In 1975, the School Breakfast Program was permanently authorized.[2]
In response:
The BPP saw such actions as an unfair co-option on the part of establishment actors who looked to minimize the BPP’s importance and to move the control of community program development and management away from low-income Black communities themselves. Such co-option represented another factor that led to the slow demise of the BPP’s influence in communities across the nation.[3]
It was not until a new set of waivers were established in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that a complicated and often stigmatizing bureaucratic application process was eliminated, and free lunches were provided for all students. Before this new expansion, as many as 75% of U.S. school districts had unpaid "student meal debt."[4] After the federal breakfast programs were established, noticeable improvements in students' levels of focus, energy, and reduced stress were observed by teachers, while schools no longer had to deal with unnecessary paperwork.[5]
This expansion proved short-lived. In 2022, federal school meal programs faced a "perfect storm" according to Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association.[6]. Even though a poll in 2021 found that "74% of Americans support making universal free school meals permanent nationwide," the Democratic Party's surrender to Republican opposition led to the expiration of this highly popular policy, once again excluding tens of millions of students from receiving free meals.[7][8]
Sources
- ↑ https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/black-panther-partys-free-breakfast-program-1969-1980/
- ↑ https://www.history.com/news/free-school-breakfast-black-panther-party
- ↑ Garrett Broad, "More than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change"
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/04/us-school-hunger-crisis-federal-waivers-end
- ↑ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/free-school-lunches-are-ending-house-passes-deal-summer-meals-child-nu-rcna34745
- ↑ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/free-school-lunches-set-end-creating-perfect-storm-high-inflation-rcna33688
- ↑ https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/black-panthers-free-breakfast-program
- ↑ https://www.npr.org/2022/10/26/1129939058/end-of-nationwide-federal-free-lunch-program-has-some-states-scrambling