Food Not Bombs First Arrests (1988)

Mon Aug 15, 1988

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Image: On August 15th, 1988, nine volunteers were arrested for sharing food and literature at Golden Gate Park, including founding member Keith McHenry (shown) [zinnedproject.org]

Food Not Bombs is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, sharing free vegan and vegetarian food with others. Food Not Bombs’ ideology is that corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance.

As evidence of this, a large amount of the food served by the group is surplus food from grocery stores, bakeries, and markets that would otherwise go to waste (or, occasionally, has already been thrown away).

On this day in 1988, members of Food Not Bombs (including one of the founders, Keith McHenry, shown), were arrested for the first time in San Francisco, California, for handing out free food and literature in Golden Gate Park. These were the first of many arrests of Food Not Bombs activists for giving away free food.