Oct. 2009 Review of AYCE on Mississippi Delta Caucus Website

Mr. Berg has longstanding ties to the Delta, having conducted important anti-poverty and hunger activities in the Mississippi Delta region during the Clinton administration, and in recent years he has been generous with his time in providing advice and data about hunger and poverty to the Delta Grassroots Caucus. I worked with Mr. Berg in the Clinton administration and can attest to his impressive record on issues of great concern to the Delta Caucus.

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I have read All You Can Eat and in my view it is one of the most important and insightful books on poverty and hunger in America since Michael Harrington’s landmark work, The Other America, which was published in 1962 and often credited with helping to provide part of the intellectual underpinnings for Medicaid, Medicare, and expanded federal nutrition programs. Joel Berg’s book reviews the recent history of hunger in America–with several important passages dealing with hunger in the Mississippi Delta region in the 1960s, when Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy and other leaders dramatized the plight of the hungry in our region. The book combines a superb intellect, political experience at a national level in the Clinton administration, leadership of a major nonprofit in New York, and a deep commitment to helping the neediest of the needy.

Joel Berg presents a series of ideas on how to eradicate the shame of hunger in our wealthy country. He is admirably objective, criticizing or commending the contributions of politicians of both parties based on the merits. While obviously a Democrat who gives credit where it is due to the likes of George McGovern, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, he also praises the anti-hunger work of Republican leaders such as Bob Dole and even Richard Nixon (GASP!!!). Contrary to cynical views of politics that it makes no difference which party or which leader is in power, Mr. Berg skillfully demonstrates that there indeed have been profound differences in leadership, policies, and their impact upon poverty and hunger in America.

Joel Berg does not shy away from facing the most controversial issues facing our society today, so you may not agree with all of his conclusions, but his ideas are always thought-provoking and creative.
In the Delta, we are all too familiar with the dilemma that in many areas, the most accessible food is a convenience store or a similar place where lower-income people buy fattening, artery-clogging fast food. So many of our problems in the Delta are related to poor nutrition and illnesses that are related to bad nutrition, such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease. We are also all too familiar with the unpleasant reality that the media and many politicians “discover” about once a year around Thanksgiving that we still have many people who do not have access to an affordable, nutritious diet. Our levels of food insecurity in the Delta are among the highest in the country, and Joel does a great job of challenging the public and the powers that be to make hunger eradication a top national priority and not just a once-a-year photo op.

We have many nonprofit organizations in our grassroots coalition, and I can assure you that Joel’s practical advice on how to be an effective advocate in the trenches of anti-poverty work is highly valuable. Based on his many years of experience, he provides wise counsel on how to be an effective nonprofit advocate. I know I have profited from his advice on that score, as well as from his many insightful ideas about hunger in America. If you buy a copy of his book on the website you will also be contributing to a worthy cause, because part of the proceeds go to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, a coalition of anti-hunger organizations in the New York City area.

– Lee Powell, Executive Director, October 9, 2009