Bobby J. Smith II | Department of African American Studies

Dr. Bobby J. Smith II is an award-winning author, social scientist, and Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies and Fellow in the Policy Design Lab in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign with affiliations in the Department of Food Science & Human Nutrition and the Center for Social & Behavioral Science.

Trained as a sociologist, with a background in agricultural economics, Dr. Smith’s research, teaching, and service creates a public interdisciplinary space to explore how Black people’s historical and contemporary relationships to agriculture and food have shaped both their lives and the world. More broadly, Dr. Smith is an expert in food justice, food systems analysis, food equity, agricultural history, agricultural industry issues, and equitable policy design. While at the University of Illinois, Dr. Smith’s research has received international and national recognition. He was a named a 2020 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellow, a 2021 American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellow, the inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at the USDA National Agricultural Library in 2023, a 2023-2024 Research Fellow in the Public Libraries Partnering on Food Justice Project with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a 2023-2024 Excellence in Research Award recipient in the Department of African American Studies, a 2024 Campus Distinguished Promotion Award recipient, and a 2024-2025 Helen Corley Petit Scholar from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, among other awards and honors.

Dr. Smith's first book, Food Power Politics: The Food Story of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement (UNC Press, 2023), won the 2024 First Book Prize from the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) and the 2024 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Book Award-Honorable Mention from the Society for the Study of Social Problems. The book was named a 2024 James Beard Book Award Finalist and a 2023 Hooks National Book Award Finalist. As the inaugural book of the Black Food Justice Series at UNC Press, Food Power Politics reconfigures how we understand the American Civil Rights Movement and uses the movement in Mississippi as a litmus test to measure how Black people interface with the nation’s food system and identify blind spots that illuminate the persistence of food inequities.

Dr. Smith’s other writings appear in respected academic journals including Food, Culture, & Society, Agriculture and Human Values, and Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. He serves on the editorial boards of Agricultural History, the leading international journal of record among agricultural historians and the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, the world's only peer-reviewed, transdisciplinary journal focused solely on food- and farming-related community development.

Dr. Smith earned a PhD in Development Sociology from Cornell University in 2018, a master’s degree in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University in 2013, and a bachelor’s degree (summa cum laude) in Agriculture with a focus on Agricultural Economics from Prairie View A&M University in 2011. Deeply committed to public engagement, Dr. Smith was awarded the 2022-2023 Outstanding Service, Community Engagement, and Outreach Award in the Department of African American Studies.

Research Interests

Black Food Studies, Black Agrarian Studies, Critical Food Studies, Food Justice, Food Sovereignty, Food Security, Rural Studies, Sociology of Food, Sociology of Agriculture, Race, Class, Gender, and Sexualities, Youth Movements.

Education

Ph.D., Development Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (2018)
M.S., Agricultural and Applied Economics, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (2013)
B.S. (Summa Cum Laude), Agriculture (Concentration: Agricultural Economics), Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, Texas (2011)

Grants

2024 Funding Initiative for Multiracial Democracy Scholarship Award, Campus Research Board, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
2020 Extension Collaboration Grant, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Project: "Developing and Delivering a Stress Management and Mental Health Program in Pembroke Township and Kankakee County."
2017-2019 Engaged Cornell Graduate Student Research Grant, Cornell University. Project: "From Civil Rights to Local Food: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Food Justice."
2017 Graduate Research Grant, American Studies Program, Cornell University. Project: "Food Justice and the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement."
2017 Engaged Cornell Engaged Opportunity Grant, Cornell University. Project: Farm to Plate Conference: Uniting to Create, Educate, and Celebrate a Sustainable Local Food.
2016 Cornell Engaged Curriculum Grant, Cornell University. Project: Seed to Supper: The Role of the Garden in Community Food Security and Food Justice.

Awards and Honors

2024-2025 Helen Corley Petit Scholar, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
2024 First Book Prize, Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS)
2024 James Beard Foundation Book Award Finalist (Reference, History, and Scholarship)
2024 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Book Award, Honorable Mention, Critical Race and Ethnic Study Division, Society for the Study of Social Problems
2024 Campus Distinguished Promotion Award, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
2024 HRI Prize for Best Faculty Research in the Humanities for Chapter 1, “Food Denied, Food for Freedom: The 1962-63 Greenwood Food Blockade,” in Food Power Politics: The Food Story of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement. Humanities Research Institute (HRI), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
2024 Major Career Milestones Award, Black Faculty and Professionals Alliance (BFAPA), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
2023-2024 Excellence in Research Award, Department of African American Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
2023-2024 Research Fellowship, Public Libraries Partnering on Food Justice Project, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
2023-2024 National Agricultural Library (NAL) Scholar-in-Residence, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 2023.
2022-2023 Excellence in Service, Outreach, and Engagement Award, Department of African American Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2023 Community-Academic Scholars (CAS) Program Project, Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute and the Center for Social and Behavioral Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: What makes a user-owned grocery store sustainable?, Co-Academic Mentor (June 2023 – August 2023)
2022-2023 Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
2021-2022 Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
2020 Summer Stipend Award, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
2019-2020 Short-Term Travel Fellowship, Special Collections and University Archives, Library of the Health Sciences-Chicago, Richard J. Daley Library, University of Illinois at Chicago
2018 Study the South Research Fellowship, Department of Archives and Special Collections, J. D. Williams Library, University of Mississippi
2017 Medgar and Myrlie Evers Research Fellowship, Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
2016-2017 Mellon Diversity Seminar Fellow, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Cornell University

Courses Taught

AFRO 495: Senior Thesis Seminar, Spring 2025
AFRO 490: Theory in African American Studies, Fall 2024
AFRO 224: Race and Food Security, Fall 2024
AFRO 495: Senior Thesis Seminar, Spring 2024
AFRO 490: Theory in African American Studies, Fall 2023
AFRO 224: Race and Food Security, Fall 2023
AFRO 495: Senior Thesis Seminar, Spring 2021
AFRO 224: Race and Food Security, Spring 2021
AFRO 490: Theory in African American Studies, Fall 2020
AFRO 495: Senior Thesis Seminar, Spring 2020
AFRO 224: Race and Food Security, Spring 2020
AFRO 298: Civil Rights Pilgrimage, Spring 2019
AFRO 224: Race and Food Security, Spring 2019

Additional Campus Affiliations

Associate Professor, African American Studies
Fellow, Policy Design Lab, Agricultural and Consumer Economics
Associate Professor, Food Science and Human Nutrition
Affiliate, Center for Social & Behavioral Science

Recent Publications

Books

Smith II, B. J. (2023) Food Power Politics: The Food Story of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina (UNC) Press, 2023) https://uncpress.org/book/9781469675077/food-power-politics/

2024 First Book Prize, Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS)
2024 James Beard Foundation Book Award – Finalist (Reference, History and Scholarship)
2024 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award-Honorable Mention, Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP)
2023 Hooks National Book Award-Finalist, Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis
reviewed: Journal of African American Studies, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Southern Spaces, Choice, Society for U. S. Intellectual History, Civil Eats, Food Tank: The Think Tank for Food

Edited Books

Bezner Kerr, R., Pendergrast, T. L., Smith II, B. J., and Liebert J.A. (Eds.) (2022). Rethinking Food System Transformation. Switzerland: Springer Nature

Peer-Reviewed Articles, Book Chapters, and Invited Essays

Smith II, B. J. (2024). “1964: The Untold Story of Food Stamp Politics,” Agricultural History, 98 (3), 453–461. https://doi.org/10.1215/00021482-11207109 [Invited]

Smith II, B.J., Simon, J. W., Gwin, C. S., and McMillion, D. Y. (2024). “’What does Ferguson mean for the Food Justice Movement?’: Reading Black Visions of Food Justice in Times of Social Unrest,” Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 13(4), 105–119. https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2024.134.004

Smith II, B. J. (2022). “In Search of the New Farmers of America: Remembering America’s Forgotten Black Youth Farm Movement,” Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 11(4), 9–12. https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2022.114.021 [Invited]

Smith II, B. J. (2022). “Food Justice, Intersectional Agriculture, and the Triple Food Movement.” In R. Bezner Kerr, T. L. Pendregrast, B. J. Smith II, J. A. Liebert (Eds.), Rethinking Food System Transformation. Switzerland: Springer Nature.

Smith II, B. J. (2022). “Reading Ms. Bea’s Food Voice: An Ode to my Grandmothers and Black Women Across the World,” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 8(4), 565-566. https://doi.org/10.1177/23326492221119902 [Invited]

Smith II, B. J. and Ewoodzie, J. (2021). “Listening to Zenani’s Food Voice: Recovering Contemporary Black Foodways in Southern Food Studies,” Food, Culture, & Society 24(5), 662-674. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2021.1884439

Smith II, B. J. (2021). “'From the Projects to the Pasture': Navigating Food Justice, Race, and Food Localism.” In A. S. Bartel & D. A. Castillo (Eds.), The Scholar as Human: Engaging the Humanities in Public (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press). https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501750625/the-scholar-as-human/#bookTabs=1

Smith II, B. J. (2020). “Food and the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement: Re-Reading the 1962-1963 Greenwood Food Blockade,” Food, Culture, & Society. 23(3), 382-398. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2020.1741066

Smith II, B. J. (2019). Black Lives and Agricultural History. Centennial Roundtable: Why Does Agricultural History Matter? Agricultural History, 93(4), 725-726. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d3878547ea6120001bb0da8/t/5dd30a2fb87df6283ecf6f89/1574111792730/93.4_Roundtable_WhyDoesAHMatter.pdf

Smith II, B. J. (2019). “Mississippi’s War Against the War on Poverty: Food Power, Hunger, and White Supremacy,” Study the South. https://southernstudies.olemiss.edu/study-the-south/ms-war-against-war-on-poverty/

Smith II, B. J. (2019). “Food Justice, Intersectional Agriculture, and the Triple Food Movement,” Agriculture and Human Values. 36(4), 825-835. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-019-09945-y

Pendergrastt, T. L., Smith II, B. J., Bezner Kerr, R., and Liebert, J. (2019).“Introduction to the Symposium: Rethinking Food System Transformation: Food Sovereignty, Agroecology, Food Justice, Community Action, and Scholarship,” Agriculture and Human Values. 36(4), 819-823. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-019-09952-z

Smith II, B. J. (2019).“Building Emancipatory Food Power: Freedom Farms, Rocky Acres, and the Struggle for Food Justice.” Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 8(4) 33-43. https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2019.084.009

Waller, T., Smith II, B. J., Lumumba-Kasongo, E, and Lupa, D. J. (2014). "The Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program at Cornell University: Survey Results and the Push for Qualitative Research." Journal of College Orientation and Transition, 22,1. https://www.nodaweb.org/page/jcot_fall_2014

Smith II, B. J., Kaiser, H. M., and Gómez, M. I. (2013). "Identifying Factors Influencing a Hospital's Decision to Adopt a Farm-to-Hospital Program." Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, 42(3), 508-517. https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/159225

Book Reviews, Media, and Other Writings

Delta Fresh Foods Initiative, David Hanson, and Bobby J. Smith II (2021). “Remembering the Past, Building the Future: Oral Food Histories of North Bolivar County” (Documentary Short film). https://vimeo.com/654696561/3c36069e68

Bobby J. Smith II, Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C., by Ashanté M. Reese (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019), Journal of Southern History 86, 2 (May 2020): 498-499.

Bobby J. Smith II, Food Justice Now! Deepening the Roots of Social Struggle, by Joshua Sbicca (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018), Mobilization: An International Quarterly 24, 1 (March 2019): 121-122.

Smith II, B. J. (2017). The Greenwood Food Blockade: The White Citizens Council, SNCC and the Politics of Food Access. Winter 2017 Edition of Gravy, No. 66 (Publication of the Southern Foodways Alliance). https://www.southernfoodways.org/the-greenwood-food-blockade/