I was a Cook for The Black Panthers Party Free Breakfast Program

1972-73. My first year of college. I resided in Soulard on Geyer with three friends/roommates.
I'd been volunteering for four years. I coordinated a food co-op when I was 19 in Midtown on Folsom. Prior to that I was volunteering at KDNA radio on Olive.
St Stephen's CHurch in the Darst-Peabody-Webbe Housing Project housed the BPPs program.
The connected school had a cafeteria. I was a cook for many months.
The mission of the program was to provide school age (and younger) children with hot meals prior to school.
Tired looking mothers would arrive with their children at 7 am.
I cooked scrambled eggs. Oats. Pancakes. I served the food.
I had three objections.
1: I had been recruited to volunteer by a woman who was a student at WU. She would pick me up in her Saab since I didn't own a car.
I was embarrassed to exit her car in D-P-W.
2: It was obvious the mothers were also hungry. They stared at the food. When I mentioned this to the Saab woman she told me they weren't allowed to have any food. I regret not arguing this point.
3: The Saab woman would read The BPP paper out loud to the mothers. I cringed in embarrassment when I realized she assumed they were all illiterate.

I was thinking about several life events this morning as I mentally reviewed the horror of the 60s/70s.