The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities

Allen’s mother, Willie Mae Kenner, grew up in a sharecropping family in South Carolina, and she received a teaching degree from a two-year college set up after the Civil War for freed slaves. Although she valued education highly, both as a personal goal and as a professional one, Willie Mae was never able to work as a teacher as the demands of her family life kept her working on the land. As a participant in the Great Migration, she moved with her first husband, James Kenner, to Kensington, Maryland, where she met O.W. Allen, Allen’s father. They were both married to other people when they met, but they left these marriages to be together and to have more children, including Allen and his brothers. From Willie Mae, Allen learned all he knows about food and family, as well as the value of an education.

O.W., Allen’s father, had a third-grade education and a limitless knowledge of living off the land. He taught his three sons how to fish and to hunt, and together, they all worked the three-acre family garden, growing and harvesting vegetables that sustained the family year-round. According to Allen, O.W. was the leader of their family, and he was able to discipline his children by modeling strength and hard work for them. Allen does not describe his early years as easy, but thanks to O.W., Allen grew up with a complete understanding of the value of a powerful work ethic and the potential of natural resources for sustaining life. 

Allen met Cyndy Bussler, his wife, when they were both students at the University of Miami in Florida. She is three years older than Allen, and she grew up in Wisconsin, where her parents still lived during her student years. Allen pursued Cyndy, whose blonde beauty distracted him from his work and his basketball. Eventually, the two fell in love and married, despite the disapproval of Cyndy’s parents whose community of Oak Creek, Wisconsin was not a diverse one. Together, Allen and Cyndy had three children, Erika, Adrianna, and Jason, and after a brief time in Belgium, the family settled in Wisconsin, near Cyndy’s family. 

Karen Parker, Allen’s most long-enduring employee, found safety and stability for herself and for her family in her work for Allen. Her story is a difficult one, full of tragedy and violence, but her strength, resilience, and capacity for love are inspirational. Karen’s children, DeShell and DeShawn, grow up to become involved in Allen’s urban farm, and so Karen’s history with Allen is actually her family’s history as well as part of her own personal story. DeShell and DeShawn also worked for Allen, learning about food and food-related processes like growing it, selling it, and cooking it. Karen encouraged Allen to include all the details of her story in his book so that others may learn from her early misfortunes and her later stability.