As the nation looks to the holidays and fallout from the longest government shutdown in history, funds are slowly becoming available to fund SNAP programs for 42 million Americans. At the same time, the Make America Healthy Again movement is poised to resurrect a plantation-era strategy of weaponizing food in grocery stores.
Beginning in 2026, 12 states will roll out programs under the new U.S. Department of Agriculture SNAP Food Restriction Waivers initiative, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, severely disrupting the distribution of SNAP benefits to more than 9 million Americans across these states. The states include Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma and others.
Bobby Smith
Proponents of the initiative celebrate it as a groundbreaking public health intervention that limits what can be purchased with food stamps. “As part of the Make America Healthy Again agenda,” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins declared, “this historic action seeks to reverse alarming disease trends across the country.”
Earlier in the year, Nebraska became the first state to join the program, making SNAP purchases of soda or energy drinks illegal. A few days later, Iowa joined the effort, redefining “food” under SNAP to only include “all nontaxable food items as defined by the Iowa Department of Revenue.”
In a press release, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds stated: “Soaring obesity rates have brought our nation and state to a crossroads. To promote healthy eating and protect future generations from disease — and to ensure SNAP fulfills its core function — we need a change.”
“The grocery checkout line will now be a battleground where state officials control what millions of Americans on SNAP can buy.”
But this change sets a dangerous precedent: The grocery checkout line will now be a battleground where state officials control what millions of Americans on SNAP can buy. Casualties of this reckless federal move will be forced to surrender their freedom of personal choice in deciding what they can and cannot eat.
To be very clear, this move draws directly from a playbook written by white plantation owners in the South, as observed in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, who long after slavery continued to exert power over what sharecroppers could buy at grocery stores.
Medgar Wiley Evers, a World War II veteran and prominent slain civil rights activist, documented many of these instances in the early 1950s while living in the Delta town of Mound Bayou. Before he became the first field secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Mississippi, Evers organized NAACP chapters, recruiting sharecroppers to the movement.
In his recruitment efforts, his wife, Myrlie, recalled, Evers came to fully understand the plantation system “was almost an exact duplication of slavery” in that “the plantation owner had virtual life and death control” over Black sharecroppers.
In her 1967 memoir For Us, the Living, Myrlie Evers recounted the grocery shopping experience of one sharecropper, Willie, providing a vivid example of this reality in action.
One Saturday night, Willie was observed in the local store by Medgar and Myrlie Evers as he attempted to get groceries for his family. He had been escorted there by the plantation owner, who then met with the owner of the store to decide what Willie could purchase.
“State officials who adopt these programs are, in effect, modern-day plantation owners.”
Consequently, by the time Willie approached the checkout line, it already had been pre-decided what Willie could buy. Items such as a box of cookies or bacon were prohibited, and Willie could only accept what the plantation owner deemed necessary for him to feed his family. Otherwise, his family would not have food to eat.
Willie’s story, although particular, was not an anomaly, as Medgar Evers continued to document numerous experiences between 1952 and 1954, revealing that even grocery shopping was “completely at the mercy of the plantation owner.”
Fast forward to today: Willie’s story provides a necessary lens for understanding the SNAP Food Restriction Waivers program. It is not simply a key symbol of MAHA; the program infringes on the agency of SNAP beneficiaries to decide what they want to eat. While the context is different and the stakes are much higher, the goal is still the same: control.
In other words, state officials who adopt these programs are, in effect, modern-day plantation owners, using the grocery checkout line to wage a war on food stamps.
This history reminds us that food is indeed a weapon — and as states, such as Mississippi, consider adopting these waivers, it is urgent to call attention to these issues to ensure it does not become standard policy. The country cannot afford to step back into the dark side of the plantation era, committing such a heinous action toward Americans.
Bobby J. Smith II is an associate professor of African American studies at the University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign and is author of the James Beard Award-nominated book, Food Power Politics, and is a Public Voices Fellow through The OpEd Project.