Author: Anthony Grooms

Anthony Grooms (b. 1955) is a professor of English and interdisciplinary studies at Kennesaw State University. From the small town of Louisa, Virginia, he attended a then-recently integrated white public school as part of the Freedom of Choice plan, an experience that has influenced much of his writing. He is the author of a collection of poetry, Ice Poems (1988), a collection of short stories, Trouble No More (1995), and a novel, Bombingham (2001), which won the Lillian Smith Book Award in 2002. In 1994, he cofounded the Georgia Writers Association.

Food That Pleases, Food to Take Home

Anthony Grooms

This story by African American writer and educator, Anthony “Tony” Grooms (b. 1955), taken from his 1995 collection Trouble No More, is set during the days of the lunch counter sit-ins, in this case in Grooms’ hometown of Louisa, Virginia. It exposes the human complexities of the racial situation, this time mainly from the side of two young African American girls, who, inspired by a sermon from their minister, decide to go to a local lunch counter and “demand their rights.”