Challenges and triumphs

Quinnie Cook-Richardson has been vegan for over 30 years and raised six vegan children. Here she reflects on the challenges and triumphs of her life as a Black vegan living in the US.

I started my vegan journey in the 1980s, when I was in my early 20s. As a Black person, living in a southern state in America, there was definitely a lot of isolation – but I knew it was the right thing to do. It was definitely challenging, but I was committed to it.

To start with, I would get a lot of “How can you not eat meat?” and ”Where do you get your protein from?” And of course, raising the children, people would question how I could have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. It was isolating, but most of my friends at that time were vegan, which was a blessing.

Quinnie Cook-Richardson Quinnie, her husband and their six vegan children

There were many times where it was challenging for the children to be the only vegans in their classroom. I knew that there would be so many other situations in life where they would be the only one – whether it’s the only person of colour in the room, or whether other children were doing things that they couldn’t do – who would be different. We are a very African-centred family – the children have African names and we don’t perm our hair. So starting off in life not being able to eat what other children were eating at parties, I feel like it prepared them for other situations where they would be the only one.

Representation

We live in Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta is not as integrated as people probably think it is, given that it is the birthplace of Dr Martin Luther King. There are a lot of vegan events where you see mostly Black people. Or a mainly white vegan event, hosted by white people. I do show up to those types of events – I don’t feel uncomfortable.

There is separation in what I’ve seen from the movement, and Black people definitely aren’t represented well. Often when I saw who was speaking at vegan events, I never saw any Black people. That’s been a real issue for me over the years. The picture and the face of veganism has been white – all the vegan magazines would always show white people.

Social media has really allowed us to be seen, but prior to

social media you would think that there was not one Black person who was vegan. That was a huge challenge for me. My friends and I all raised our children as vegan, but you wouldn’t know that through what was put out in the media. And today in the larger media, not just social media, Black people aren’t represented as living this vegan green lifestyle.

Whenever we have an event at our home, the food is always 100% vegan and people love it. In my culture, some of our traditional foods would be corn bread and black-eyed peas, collard greens, macaroni cheese … barbecue ribs are a big thing in the south. I’ve been able to turn all those into vegan dishes. Everything that I grew up eating can, for the most part, be veganised. It’s all about learning how to cook with different spices.

Quinnie has learned to veganise her favourite dishes

Health

We own a holistic plant-based medical clinic, so not only have we lived this vegan lifestyle, we have encouraged and influenced thousands of others to transition to a vegan lifestyle. The majority are people of colour.

Due to the pandemic, people have been suffering in such large numbers. However, one positive is that people are now ready and willing to do the work they need to do in order to be healthier. Right now, there are more Black people than ever concerned about their health and making the dietary changes and the lifestyle changes they need. That is phenomenal.

I would say most of the people I know who are Black and vegan, made that decision for health reasons. Many of us – most of us actually – grew up with family members who suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure or died from heart attacks. We observed our family members really suffer as they were aging.

I don’t feel that enough of us really focus a lot on the ethical aspect of it. But you know, if we can get people away from eating animal products or decrease it by a large percentage, it still helps the animals and the environment.

All six of our children are still at home and we have a grandbaby at home too – and everyone still embraces the vegan lifestyle. Some of our children are excellent vegan chefs – they can throw it down in the kitchen! This is how they want to raise their families. I’m very grateful that they do.

A delicious plant-based spread at the family home