Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry
Artist, author and activist
SOUP STREET
A Memoir by Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry
KEITH’S SUBSTACK
KEITH’S BIOGRAPHY
Artist and author Keith McHenry helped start Food Not Bombs in 1980 with seven of his friends. Keith has recovered, cooked and shared food with the hungry with Food Not Bombs for over 45 years.
He was arrested “for making a political statement” by sharing food with the hungry in San Francisco, spent over 500 nights in jail and faced 25 years to life in prison. Amnesty International declared Keith a Prisoner of Conscience in 1995 and called for his unconditional release.
He wrote and illustrated “Hungry for Peace – How you can help end poverty and war with Food Not Bombs”, “The Anarchist Cookbook” and his memoir “Soup Street.”
Keith has traveled all over the world speaking at colleges, books stores and community centers. When traveling he helps share meals with local volunteers in one of the nearly 1,000 Food Not Bombs groups in 70 countries.
He is an officer in the National Union of the Homeless and the Santa Cruz chapter of the California Union of the Homeless.
Keith helps prepare and share meals with the hungry in Santa Cruz, California. He also responds to requests for information on how to start, maintain or find local Food Not Bombs chapters.
He also draws, paints, and writes articles about environmental, social change, and liberation issues.
Food Not Bombs
P.O. Box 422
Santa Cruz, CA 95061 USA
keith@foodnotbombs.net
www.foodnotbombs.net
KEITH’S ARCHIVES https://vault.library.uvic.ca/collections/f0bcfcdc-d198-4364-a5af-58556239443c?locale=en
KEITH’S INTERVIEWS
THIS Is How You Start A Mass Movement!
How to Start A Revolution – #SolutionsWatch
https://corbettreport.com/how-to-start-a-revolution
Make Food, Not War
Direct Action – Food Not Bombs! with Keith McHenry | DEEP FOCUS with John Kiriakou
Food Not Bombs founder Keith McHenry’s quest to change society
Here’s The BIG Problem With Trump’s Homeless Sweeps!
SF Man Claims He’s PAID TO BE HOMELESS! w/ Keith McHenry
https://rumble.com/v6tmarr-sf-man-claims-hes-paid-to-be-homeless-w-keith-mchenry.html
Exposing The FRAUD & GRIFT Of Maintaining Homelessness! w/ Keith McHenry
The Coming Revolution To END Homelessness! Full Interview w/ Food Not Bombs Founder Keith McHenry
The TRUTH About USAID w/Keith McHenry
30% INCREASE In Homelessness Since 2023 While Economy Grows!?!
BILLIONS To Fix Homelessness – Where Did It All Go??? w/ Keith McHenry
Kim Iversen interviews Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry – We’re Being Duped About The Homelessness Crisis: The Dark Truth Behind The Cleanup Efforts
‘We gotta be somewhere’: Homeless Californians react to Newsom’s crackdown
‘We gotta be somewhere’: Homeless Californians react to Newsom’s crackdown
Editorial | ‘No tolerance’ as sweeps of homeless camps in Santa Cruz ramp up
‘The Problem Is, There’s No Place for Anyone to Go’: CounterSpin interview with Keith McHenry on criminalizing homelessness
https://fair.org/home/the-problem-is-theres-no-place-for-anyone-to-go
The problem is, there’s no place for anyone to go
‘The Problem Is, There’s No Place for Anyone to Go’
CounterSpin interview with Keith McHenry on criminalizing homelessness
Decades in the Struggle – Interview with Keith McHenry
Food for Bombs – Nigeria
Antifa whistleblower BREAKS SILENCE, warns of violence
https://youtu.be/Mihd5Y8U2iQ?si=r4Rb_1oLghVezkio
“The Anarchist Cookbook” by Keith McHenry with Chaz Bufe | Book Discourse – https://youtu.be/bWtP_0MZrjM?si=_C2MX2-On-atOwP2
KEITH’S OTHER BOOKS
HUNGRY FOR PEACE – How you can help end poverty and war with Food Not Bombs
https://foodnotbombs.net/new_site/hungry_for_peace.php
THE ANARCHIST COOKBOOK
https://foodnotbombs.net/new_site/anarchist_cookbook.html
BOOK REVIEWS OF SOUP STREET
5 Powerful Memoirs of Justice, Struggle, and Self-Discovery
Written by Ladys Patino, Book Reviewer and Writer
Ladys Patino is a distinguished writer and book critic with a specialization in organizational behavior, management, leadership, and community dynamics.
The best memoirs do more than tell a life story. They hand us a mirror and a map at the same time, showing us how one person faced injustice, fear, or their own inner demons and came out the other side with something to teach the rest of us.
Soup Street
A memoir by Food Not Bombs cofounder Keith McHenry by Keith McHenry
Keith McHenry has spent his life doing something that sounds simple but has landed him in jail hundreds of times, feeding hungry people in public for free. In this vivid memoir, the cofounder of Food Not Bombs traces the journey that turned him into a lifelong activist, including a childhood spent in America’s wild landscapes, life on the front lines of protest, and even surviving torture.
McHenry writes with grit and grace about his outrage at injustice, the birth of a global movement, and the strength it takes to keep going in the face of police beatings and constant arrest. His story is packed with adventures, including traveling with punk bands across Mexico, speaking on the radio in Nigeria, and riding trains through the war-torn Balkans, but its heart is a steady belief that sharing food is a radical act of compassion. For activists and anyone who has ever wanted to stand up for what is right, this book is both an inspiration and a recipe for resistance.
https://www.brainzmagazine.com/post/5-powerful-memoirs-of-justice-struggle-and-self-discovery
SOUP STREET BLURBS
“A vivid, unflinching memoir, Soup Street traces Keith McHenry’s journey from wild American landscapes to front-line activism and torture survival, revealing how a life of hardship, courage, and compassion gave birth to Food Not Bombs and a global struggle for justice, dignity, and hope.”
—John Kiriakou, CIA Torture Whistleblower
Keith McHenry is the real deal, a warrior for peace. His book on feeding the hungry begins with outrage at the desecration of the pure air at Four Corners by the Peabody Coal generating plant, generating his youthful vow that, “Any political and economic system willing to desecrate the sacred lands of the southwest was a system I vowed to dedicate my life to ending.”
I worked supporting Hopi friends and we closed that plant down, so without ever shaking hands, I can say I know who Keith McHenry is. The San Francisco Diggers (of which I was a founding member) fed a lot of people, but we can’t touch what Keith, and his partner, my friend Diamond Dave, (who worked the Food Not Bombs tables in San Francisco) accomplished. This book is a slice of history you haven’t read about or known if you haven’t lived it. Learn the story of this remarkable man. Model his courage and dedication. Read this book and pick up the banner he never dropped.
Peter Coyote, actor, author, Zen Buddhist teacher.
Keith McHenry shares how the background of his decent parents who were part of the “greatest generation” impressed upon him to share the good fortunes of living in this country and how it translated to him so as to dedicate his life to making things better for those feeling less fortunate. To improve upon the inequities of life here in our country by the simple act of sharing food. This would seem to be a beautiful thing except far too many of those in power saw hungry people congregating as a threat and as an eye sore. Keith celebrates his life by pointing out and protesting out this petty mean spirited view of feeding fellow human beings/countrymen in public as a negative worthy of arrest and harassment. It has been Keith’s McHenry’s mission in life to perform these good acts. He shares the adventures, the challenges and the arrests through his life. My punk band MDC made music for and supported “Food Not Bombs” through the decades and I am proud to know him and to have supported him. He has served millions of people with free vegan food. Bless him and pick up his read on the adventures of challenging mayors, the police and powers that be who would suppress the simple act feeding people in public with free food.
Dave Dictor – MDC Hardcore Punk
I’ve been a fan of Keith McHenry for decades, but I always had simmering questions: What sparked him to start Food Not Bombs? What sustains the strength it takes to endure police beatings, countless nights in jail, and a lifetime of struggle—all in service of feeding people? And how does he so deftly stir together the dirge of war with the scourge of hunger? I found the answers in his beautifully written Soup Street memoir—a nourishing blend of grit, grace, and radical compassion. This book is soul food for activists and a recipe for resistance. Bon appétit.
—Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK
KEITH’S BOOK TOUR
Keith can visit your university, local cafe, bookshop or other community space and share is story of co-founding Food Not Bombs and the journey that lead him to spending his life working for peace and social change. https://foodnotbombs.net/new_site/speaker.php
Keith can help you start a Food Not Bombs group in your community
Keith has spent 46 years volunteering with Food Not Bombs and would be honored to support you in organizing a local chapter.
FOOD NOT BOMBS RESOURCES
- Seven Steps to starting a Food Not Bombs goup – https://foodnotbombs.net/new_site/seven-steps.php
- Food Not Bombs Locations https://foodnotbombs.net/info/locations/
- The Food Not Bombs global website – https://foodnotbombs.net/new_site/
- Call Keith at 1-800-884-1136
MORE ABOUT KEITH
- Keith was born in Frankfurt, West Germany in 1957
- Keith spent his childhood living with his family in America’s National Parks.
- Keith co-founded Food Not Bombs and designed the movements logo in 1980
- The FBI declared Food Not Bombs as a “credible national security threat” on August 29, 1988.
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“Keith McHenry is a lively speaker who can cook a large meal while talking and share it afterwards. I recommend seeing him if he’s coming near your town.”.”
Chris V
iww.org
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