Former Knoxville Pastor Becomes Food Activist, Cultivating Community Gardens To Fight Local Food Apartheid

"I’m doing something that’s meeting a significant need in our community. I think it’s literally saving people’s lives," said the former pastor.

Chris Battle, a former senior pastor at Tabernacle Baptist Church, left his post at one of Knoxville, Tennessee’s oldest Black congregations to pursue a different calling. People reports that in 2019, Battle left the church to grow and deliver fresh food in an effort to meet the needs of his local community. The 62-year-old Battle told People, “I’m doing something that’s meeting a significant need in our community. “I think it’s literally saving people’s lives.”

Battle recounted his personal journey from preacher to food activist, telling the magazine, “My life goal was to pastor, to be of service to others, and then retire.” Working in East Knoxville for 30 years, however, reoriented his goal, as he discovered he was working in an area affected by food apartheid. “Learning that people here could not get access to food to nourish their bodies felt ridiculous to me. It started messing with my head,” he recalled.

In 2018, Battle planted a small garden on land his church owned and gave away the produce. Eventually, community members, which included many who’d never been to his church, came by to help Battle as he tended his crops. A light turned on for the pastor when he saw this, telling People, “That’s when it dawned on me that they won’t come to my church, but they will come to my garden. I knew we needed to find a way to merge the two.”

By 2019, Battle quit his job and helped launch a Sunday’s farmer’s market and coordinate deliveries of produce donated by food banks to residents of public housing. He later established four additional community gardens including Battlefield Farm & Gardens, where he holds informal church services every Sunday. Battle’s congregation now features okra, cabbage and onions, in addition to a small crossbsection of American society.

“We meet here whenever God says it’s okay — meaning whenever it’s not raining or too cold,” Battle told People. “We’ve got atheists here, gay, trans and straight people. I think we’ve even got a witch.”

He continued, “I’ve never been happier. I don’t miss pastoring. I tell people, ‘I pastor okra now—okra doesn’t give me as many problems as some people do.’”