For Black History Month, Sweet Potato Comfort Pie founder Rose McGee writes about how she began her baking activism and the historical importance of sweet potato pie in black culinary traditions. Our thanks to Rose for sharing her personal baking story!
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Despite being the founder of an organization called Sweet Potato Comfort Pie, I didn't wake up loving to bake pies. It took decades before I heeded the call of what I consider the holy grail of black culture: sweet potato pie. Now, however, it has gone beyond being a delicious dessert; for me, it is my mission and service.
I didn't choose sweet potato pie. He chose me.
I grew up in rural Jackson, Tennessee, raised by my paternal grandmother and great-grandmother. Those precious women whipped up sweet potato pies all the time, usually to give to members of our community: a grieving family, someone who had just given birth, or a newlywed.
I say “those women” because I've never had to cook – they have. I washed dishes and even peeled potatoes, but cooking was not my passion. As a result, I was a late bloomer when it came to pie baking.
My first call from sweet potato pie came when I moved to Denver to get married after college. I wasn't a good cook to say the least, but one Sunday I decided to make a sweet potato pie. I called my grandmother (whom I call Mama) in Tennessee and asked her for the recipe. “Recipe? What recipe?” she asked. “I just made it, baby.”
Alas, Baby made the biggest mess as Mom recited those spiritual ingredients along with her heart-rooted readings. It would take several tosses before I finally got a pie worthy of human consumption. Once I got my groove on, my sweet potato pie was in my mom's league. (Well maybe not, because nobody can make a sweet potato pie like my mom!)
I continued to make sweet potato pies—even selling my award-winning dessert at farmers markets—but it would be a few more decades before the call began to apace. It came when I least expected it and it felt like I was in church when the preacher calls us to say “Amen”. This time, I had no choice but to finally answer.
Answering my pie call
It was in 2014 when, like many people, I saw passionate protests erupt in Ferguson, Missouri, because the baby of another black mother had been killed at the hands of law enforcement. This time it was young Michael Brown. I sat in front of my TV feeling the pain as if I was right there in the sweat, blood and tears of summer. I cried out to God to please stop this hatred. He told me just as plainly, “Go make some pies and take them down there.”
I walked into my kitchen and decided this was exactly what I was going to do. Within the next few days, I packed about 30 sweet potato pies in the trunk of my car and drove from my Minnesota home to Ferguson with my son, Adam.
By the time we arrived in Ferguson, the first round of protests had died down. The city was silent as people awaited an indictment. But a young girl stood by Michael Brown's makeshift memorial, arguing with Michael loudly. “You should have been in!” she said. “Why did you have to go out that day?”
I approached him and after talking for a bit, I asked him if he wanted a pie. Stunned and in disbelief, she agreed. What happened next left me speechless. She held the pie, shook it, and began to cry. We both did.
And so it went with every pie I served on that trip. Each person was amazed that the woman from Minnesota was giving them a sweet potato pie.
The trip to Ferguson opened my eyes to what people want: to be heard, respected and given equal rights backed by equal access. And so it began – Sweet Potato Comfort Pie it was official and now had my full attention. I returned to Minnesota knowing that I had a purpose to help bridge communication between people of all ethnicities. And if one pie at a time can help do that – then let the baking begin!
To me, sweet potato pie is the holy grail of black culture
This work is not new. Throughout the history of this country, sweet potato pie has always had a special power, especially in black communities. In the early 1900s, Mary McLeod Bethune rode her bicycle throughout the community selling sweet potato pies to raise money to open a school for freed black boys and girls to receive higher education. Today Bethune-Cookman University in Dayton Beach, Florida still meets the needs of young people as they “enter to learn and go out to serve.”
George Washington Carver did more than work with peanuts; his research helped popularize sweet potatoes (making other recipes, such as Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls, also possible). Even earlier than that, the once-enslaved Abby Fisher got into it Sweet Potato Pie Recipe in one of the first books published by a black cook: 1881 What Mrs. Fisher knows about old southern cooking.
I love how the early cooks add “a dash” of this and “a pinch” of that, because that's exactly what my mom taught me, and it guarantees that the pies come from the heart.
Meanwhile, Georgia Gilmore brought about change through her cooking as she tirelessly made pies and other soul food during the Montgomery bus boycott. She showed that there is power in food culture, and she inspired future black bakers in process.
Pie is a tool for healing
When I was feeding pies to protesters in North Minneapolis after the killing of young Jamar Clark, I created a sign that said, “Stand up! Strengthen! With sweet potato pie!” After Philando Castile's murder, we took pies to his family knowing that “it's what's in the dough that counts,” as I like to say.
Hundreds of Sweet Potato Comfort Pie volunteers have helped distribute 3,000 pies to bring comfort to many families and communities, including Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina following the killing of nine worshipers, the murders at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and after the murder of Mr. George Floyd right here in Minneapolis.
Through all the grief and tragedy, I still remain hopeful.
For the seventh year now, hundreds of people gathered with me over pie in celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. last month. Each year, volunteers bake the number of Dr. Age pies. King if he were alive. This January, despite COVID and the attack on the nation's Capitol, people came together virtually to talk about race and share stories about who they'd like to give the 92 pies to (Dr. King's age). Stories were told by people of all ages and ethnicities.
Watching and listening to young people tell about gifts for others reassured me that love is being strengthened by these pies. And for that very reason, I remain encouraged as I keep my eyes on the pies.
King Arthur has made a donation to Rose's organization, Sweet Potato Comfort Pie. We encourage you to learn more and donate to sweetpotatocomfortpie.org/donate/.
All photos courtesy of Rose McGee and Sweet Potato Comfort Pie, except for the black and white photo of Dr. -White negatives.
