Bobby J. Smith II
Bobby J. Smith II

Contact Information

Department of African American Studies
1201 West Nevada Street, MC-143
Urbana, IL 61801

Phone: (217)-244-9139
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Associate Professor, Conrad Professorial Scholar, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
PhD (Cornell University), 2018

Biography

Dr. Bobby J. Smith II is a Conrad Professorial Scholar in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies, and Fellow in the Policy Design Lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is affiliated with the Campus Honors Program, Department of Sociology, the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, and the Center for Social & Behavioral Science. 

Trained as a sociologist with a background in agricultural economics, Dr. Smith is an award-winning social scientist and James Beard–nominated author of Food Power Politics: The Food Story of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and Black Farm Boys: The Untold Story of the New Farmers of America. He is an expert in Black agricultural and food studies, food justice, food systems-level analysis, agricultural history, agricultural/food industry issues, and equitable policy design.

At the University of Illinois, Dr. Smith pursues an active, interdisciplinary research agenda that explores the question: How have Black people’s historical and contemporary relationships to agriculture and food shaped their lives and society? His writings appear in leading academic journals, including Agricultural History, Food, Culture, and Society, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, and the Journal of Black Studies, as well as in public media outlets such as TIME Magazine, The Conversation, and Word In Black. His research has also appeared in major outlets, including The Washington Post and The Guardian. Dr. Smith serves on the editorial boards of Agricultural History and the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, and is a founding editorial board member of The Land, Food, and Freedom Journal, the publication of the National Black Food and Justice Alliance.

Dr. Smith’s research and scholarship have received national and international recognition. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the American Council of Learned Societies, the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, among others. In 2023, he was appointed the inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at the USDA National Agricultural Library. In 2024, he received a Campus Distinguished Promotion Award from the UIUC Office of the Provost for his early promotion to Associate Professor with indefinite tenure, and a 2024-2025 Helen Corley Petit Scholar Award from the UIUC College of Liberal Arts & Sciences for an extraordinary record of excellence in research and teaching.

In 2025, he was selected for the 2025-2026 OpEd Project/Public Voices Fellowship at the University of Illinois System. In 2026, he was selected for the inaugural class of 40 under 40 Awardees of the Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) organization, which recognizes members under 40 who have become transformative leaders across global industries in agriculture, natural resources, and related sciences. He was also named a 2026-2029 Conrad Professorial Scholar in the UIUC College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, which recognizes promising mid-career scholars and provides financial support for continued achievement, research, and scholarship in the humanities.

Dr. Smith earned a Ph.D. in development sociology and an M.S. in applied and agricultural economics from Cornell University, and a B.S. (summa cum laude) in agriculture – agricultural economics from Prairie View A&M University. 

BOOKS 

Food Power Politics: The Food Story of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement / Black Food Justice Series, University of North Carolina Press, 2023 (Honors: 2024 First Book Prize, Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS); 2024 James Beard Book Award-Finalist; 2024 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award-Honorable Mention; 2023 Hooks National Book Award-Finalist)

This book unearths a food story buried deep in the soil of American civil rights history. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and oral histories, I re-examine the Mississippi civil rights movement as a period when activists broadened the meaning of civil rights to recognize food as integral to sociopolitical and economic conditions. For decades, white economic and political actors used food as a weapon against Black sharecropping communities in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, but members of these communities collaborated with activists to turn food into a tool of resistance. Today, Black youth are building a food justice movement in the Delta to carry this story forward, grappling with inequalities that continue to shape their lives.

Drawing on multiple disciplines, including critical food studies, Black studies, history, sociology, and southern studies, I make critical connections between civil rights activism and present-day food justice activism in Black communities, revealing how power struggles over food empower them to envision Black food futures in which communities have the full autonomy and capacity to imagine, design, create, and sustain a self-sufficient local food system.

Black Farm Boys: The Untold Story of the New Farmers of America / Rural Studies Series, University of North Carolina Press, 2026 

Black Farm Boys is the first scholarly book on the New Farmers of America (NFA), a pivotal yet forgotten Black agricultural organization for rural Black boys. Founded in 1935, the NFA was the first national organization for Black farm boys studying vocational agriculture at segregated public high schools across the South—and as far north as New Jersey. In this book, I chart new terrain in Black history by uncovering the hidden story of the organization, which grew to an annual membership of more than 55,000 and empowered Black boys to challenge racial exclusion in agriculture by becoming farmers and pursuing agricultural careers. But by 1965, the NFA had vanished—unraveled by a hostile takeover by the predominantly white Future Farmers of America (FFA). The NFA and the generation of Black agricultural leaders it helped shape were largely erased from the historical record.

In vivid prose, I confront and grapple with the haunting paradox: the NFA's very significant existence and its near total absence from from our nation's historical memory. By reconstructing the NFA’s rise, influence, and disappearance, I reshape the history of Black agricultural life and restore a vital chapter in the story of education, rural life, and racial justice in the United States.

Research Interests

Black Agricultural and Food Studies, Critical Food Studies, Food Justice, Food Sovereignty, Food Security, Rural Studies, Sociology of Food, Sociology of Agriculture, Youth Movements. 

Education

Ph.D. (Cornell University), Development Sociology, 2018

M.S. (Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University), Agricultural and Applied Economics, 2013

B.S. (Summa Cum Laude, Prairie View A&M University), Agriculture/Agricultural Economics, 2011

Grants

  • 2025-2028 Robert Wood Johnson Grant, "Reducing obesity rates among children by addressing the interplay of early life adversity, racist systems, and economic and environmental hardships," Odoms-Young Nutrition Liberation, Food Sovereignty, and Justice Lab, Cornell University (Research Consultant) 
  • 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

  • 2026-2029 Conrad Professorial Scholar, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • 2025-2026 OpEd Project/Public Voices Fellowship, University of Illinois System
  • 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

Fall 2026

  • AFRO 199: Black Visions of Agriculture and Food, Campus Honors Program
  • AFRO 490: Theory in African American Studies

2025-2026

  • AFRO 199: Black Visions of Agriculture and Food, Campus Honors Program
  • AFRO 490: Theory in African American Studies 
  • AFRO 495: Senior Thesis Seminar
  • AFRO 598: Research Seminar in African American Studies

2024-2025 

  • AFRO 224: Race and Food Security
  • AFRO 490: Theory in African American Studies
  • AFRO 495: Senior Thesis Seminar

2023-2024

  • AFRO 224: Race and Food Security
  • AFRO 490: Theory in African American Studies
  • AFRO 495: Senior Thesis Seminar

2020-2021

  • AFRO 224: Race and Food Security
  • AFRO 490: Theory in African American Studies
  • AFRO 495: Senior Thesis Seminar

2019-2020

  • AFRO 224: Race and Food Security
  • AFRO 495: Senior Thesis Seminar

2018-2019

  • AFRO 224: Race and Food Security 
  • AFRO 298: Civil Rights Pilgrimage

Additional Campus Affiliations

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

Recent Publications

Books

Smith II, B. J. (2026). Black Farm Boys: The Untold Story of the New Farmers of America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina (UNC) Press). https://uncpress.org/9781469696935/black-farm-boys/ 

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). 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

Coppess, J., and B. J. Smith II. (2026). “Ghosts of Agri-Food Policy: The Lost Years of Jamie L. Whitten, 1910-1949,” Journal of Food Law & Policy, 22(1), 81-109. https://doi.org/10.54119/jflp.vxkr2081 

Smith II, B. J. (2026). "The Women of Operation Breadbasket: A Lost Chapter in the Chicago Civil Rights Movement." Journal of Black Studies, 57(1), 96-118. https://doi.org/10.1177/00219347251386903

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

Public Writing, Media, and Book Reviews

Dufelmeier, D. and Smith II, B. J. (2026, June 27) Food Is Medicine: Historic Concept Needs Expansion. The Fulcrum. https://thefulcrum.us/health/food-is-medicine-history-future-civil-rights 

Smith II, B. J. (2026, June 19). The Taste of Juneteenth: Food, Family and Freedom’s Legacy. Fair Observer. https://www.fairobserver.com/culture/the-taste-of-juneteenth-food-family-and-freedoms-legacy/ 

Smith II, B. J. (2026, June 18). Juneteenth’s real meaning is written on the plates of smoked meats, potato salad and watermelon. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/juneteenths-real-meaning-is-written-on-the-plates-of-smoked-meats-potato-salad-and-watermelon-284645 

Smith II, B. J. (2026, May 27). Soul Food as Medicine: How Jonell Nash Redefined Black Public Health. Public Health Post. https://publichealthpost.org/health-equity/soul-food-as-medicine-how-jonell-nash-redefined-black-public-health/ 

Smith II, B. J. and M. Phillips. (2026, May 12). How to survive a ‘skinny’ farm bill. Baptist News Global. https://baptistnews.com/article/how-to-survive-a-skinny-farm-bill/ 

Smith II, B. J. (2026, March 2). The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s fight for justice included Chicago grocery store aisles. The Triibe. https://thetriibe.com/2026/03/reflection-the-rev-jesse-jacksons-fight-for-justice-included-chicago-grocery-store-aisles/ 

Smith II, B. J. (2026, February 26). Fort Worth woman was an important pioneer in Black food development. Fort Worth Star Telegram. https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/other-voices/article314821374.html 

Smith II, B. J. and M. Bonn. (2026, February 20). The Food Pyramid Has Flipped. Can Libraries Help Make Sense of It? Public Health Post. https://publichealthpost.org/health-equity/the-food-pyramid-has-flipped-can-libraries-help-make-sense-of-it/ 

Smith II, B. J. (2026, February 2). Food Pyramid Blind Spots: What Supermarket Civil Rights Teaches Us. Word In Black. https://wordinblack.com/2026/02/food-pyramid-blind-spots-what-supermarket-civil-rights-teaches-us/ 

Smith II, B. J. (2025, November 25). Back to the Plantation: How MAHA Weaponizes Food. Baptist News Global. https://baptistnews.com/article/back-to-the-plantation-how-maha-weaponizes-food/ 

Smith II, B. J. (2025, November 8). Crisis Not Averted: How Government Shutdown Exposes America’s Food Insecurity. The Fulcrum. https://thefulcrum.us/governance-legislation/crisis-not-averted-government-shutdown-food-insecurity-snap

Smith II, B. J. (2025, November 6). History Shows How Cooking Can be a Pivotal Tool for Activism. TIME Magazine. https://time.com/7323420/civil-rights-food-history/

Smith II, B. J. (2025, October 16). Chicago Restaurants Using Civil Rights-Era Playbook To Fight ICE. The Opinion Pages. https://theopinionpages.com/2025/10/chicago-restaurants-using-civil-rights-era-playbook-to-fight-ice/

Bobby J. Smith II, Growing Gardens Building Power: Food Justice and Urban Agriculture in Brooklyn, by Justin Sean Myers (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2022), Agricultural History, 98, 1 (February 2024): 118–120.

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/