MLK Through The Lens of Food Part 4: The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Down home Montgomery, Alabama pound cake, recipes below  

Yesterday I started talking about Martin Luther King (MLK), Georgia Gilmore, food, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. When Montgomery authorities arrested Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger, just about the entire black community of the city rallied to her aid. ED Nixon, President of the Montgomery NAACP and active member of A Phillip Randolph’s Pullman Porter’s Union, organized a meeting of the city’s black leaders. To insure solidarity among this often fragmented group, they agreed on MLK, a newcomer with impeccable credentials (Morehouse grad, PhD. from Boston University, Daddy King’s son, and a gifted orator) to serve as the president and spokesmen of the newly established Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). Women, who Nixon did not invite to the MIA organizing meeting, organized their own groups. Georgia Gilmore, who took the lead, called them the “Club from No Where.” They included black women from the south side and west side of the city who organized clubs dedicated to using their baking skills to raise money for the MIA and the success of the bus boycott. I'll have more tomorrow on the Club from No Where, MLK, the bus boycott. Here’s a pound cake recipe like one members of the Club from No Where" would have used with my food translation.

Translated Simple Pound Cake Recipe:
1 pound butter substitute like Smart Balance
3 cups sugar
5 eggs (or egg substitute)
3 cups cake flour (you can get whole grain cake flour like baking with spelt flour)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup soy milk
A splash of vanilla, almond, or lemon extract

Method:
Mix butter, sugar, and eggs. Beat until light. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt. Add slowly to butter mixture alternating with milk. Bake for about an hour and some change at 325

Vegan pound cake recipe: http://aveganfordinner.blogspot.com/2006/12/promised-poundcake-and-pizza-friday.html

Lemon coconut vegan pound cake: http://www.nibbledish.com/people/laraadler/recipes/lemon-coconut-pound-cake-vegan