FEATURE: George Jones

My journey to veganism initiated from a place of vanity. I will humbly admit that as a teen and young adult, I suffered from acne to the point where it consumed and isolated me from being my true outgoing self. I visited multiple dermatologists, and was prescribed methods and medicines all varying in side effects and costs. I thought, "There must be a better way." As a naturally curious person, I conducted my own research and stumbled on various skin blogs where people spoke about dairy and the connection to it and skin irritation. I'd consumed dairy once a day in one form or another. Pizza being my favorite food and mozzarella sticks a close second. So in that moment, I decided that if I was going to spend all this money and time trying to fix my skin, I could at least omit something for a week just to see what works.

 In less than a week, my skin was brighter and my acne was at an all-time low, thus began my new love for food education. Food had the power to clear my skin? What other magic tricks did the food kingdom offer? At this point, I am around 26 and have been working out regularly and an avid runner at about 5-7 miles a day. Always looking to better my time, I found through multiple fitness publications that many runners do not eat meat. I admittedly struggled with the idea for two months, and figured I could start with red meat. Within a month, I shaved a solid minute and a half off of my 8.5 mile. I was head over heels, and didn’t feel I was missing anything not eating burgers. I kept this up, and vegetables became required versus optional.

October 4th 2015 I made the decision to move into vegetarianism. I purposely did this around the holidays when I knew it would be the most difficult. It was easier than I thought. I am not the type of person who enjoys food comas. My family laughed it off, but over the next year I felt and looked better than I did my entire life. October 4th of 2016 I made the decision to move into veganism. I watched Earthlings on YouTube, and learned the unquestionable connection to food, nature and unity. In October I also achieved my certification through AFPA as a Nutrition and Dietitian.  I had been vegan for months at a time during my vegetarian era, but pizza was the ONLY thing I could not live without. I found vegan pizza, and said "well, that’s that." It has all been organic, and easy. The health benefits are obvious, and the simplicity of which I approach food makes for a very enjoyable lifestyle with endless options. The powerlessness of big business over what I consume and how I live, evoke a slight courageous and rebelliousness that I love. Veganism has shown me the beauty of nature to heal and grow and love.

Social Media

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jpboleynjones

FEATURE: Amy McKnight

During my journey, I have met many black women my age and much younger who have had whole or partial hysterectomies and are suffering with infertility because of non-cancerous uterine fibroid tumors. 

These experiences have made me passionate about sharing the power of eating a plant-based vegan diet as a means of restoring health, fertility and avoiding needless surgical interventions. 

I have been a 100% whole food plant based vegetarian on and off for the last 24 years. It is only very recently that I’ve begun to self-identify as vegan. This came as a result of learning more about the “black” vegan movement. 

I’m beginning to see how the black vegan movement connects with systematic racism which can be seen in the medical “treatment” of women of color with fibroids. 

Every year 600,000 women in America will have hysterectomies. 200,000 of those will be performed because of uterine fibroid tumors. It is estimated that 2/3 of all hysterectomies are completely unnecessary. 

If you are a black woman it is likely that you have or know someone who has fibroids as 80% of all black women will develop fibroids before the age of 50. When our symptoms worsen, we seek medical help and are disproportionally offered hysterectomies before being told about other options - medical or lifestyle related. 

As I talked with other women who had been diagnosed with fibroids and chose to have hysterectomies, I kept hearing stories of how their doctors told them “it was looking like it might be cancer” and “they shouldn’t take chances.” This despite the fact, 99.9% of uterine fibroid tumors are non-cancerous growths.

I heard stories of women needlessly maimed. It made me angry and sad for them. I knew that the chance of my meeting so many black women with “cancerous fibroids” was about as likely as me winning the lottery.

I knew that having a hysterectomy puts a woman at a higher risk of having cardiovascular diseases, which kill more women than breast and uterine cancer. 

During my last bout with fibroids, I set out to find a solution that would help me to rid myself of my fibroids in a natural way. I kept being led back to the 100% whole food plant based vegan diet as the foundation on which a fibroid focused natural health program can be built. Here's the beautiful thing. The natural program that will relieve symptoms and shrink fibroids, comes with the added benefit of improving a woman's over all health. 

I put my story, as well as the program that others and I have successfully used, together in a book, Taking THE FIGHT to Fibroids: A Step-by-Step Guide to Naturally Knocking Out Uterine Fibroid Symptoms & Winning Back Your Life. It is available in paperback and on Kindle. 

I recently launched a 90-day group health-coaching program to give women that extra support that is needed to stick with and win their fight with fibroids. I also am the admin of a free private Facebook group for women who are looking to fight fibroids naturally. 

I want to introduce the 100% whole food plant based vegan diet to as many women as I can to help them improve their fertility and over all health. 

*There is a special promotion running on Amy's book UNTIL THURSDAY on Amazon.

Website: thefibroidfight.com
The book on Amazon: https://amzn.com/1537317059
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amymcknightbiz/
Twitter: twitter.com/amymcknight
Facebook Page: facebook.com/amymcknightbiz/
Free Private Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/LadiesFightingFibroidsNaturally/

FEATURE: LeoLin Bowen

The first time that I heard of the word “vegetarian” was during my senior year in high school. I was on the dance team with a girl who became a vegetarian after her favorite chicken on her family’s farm became lunch. Growing up with a father who is from Mississippi and a mother who is from Belize, I had never heard of this term before, but I thought to myself I love animals and I don’t want them to get killed just so that I can eat them, so I’ll become a vegetarian too. Looking back on this time I laugh because although I stopped eating animals, I really didn’t eat any healthier. I survived on cheese fries and pizza. Thank goodness for a teenager’s metabolism and dance as a school activity. This time in my life only lasted for two years, but I always knew I’d come back to this lifestyle. 

During my time in college I thought that I’d become a veterinarian so I could help animals, but I quickly learned that being a vet didn’t necessarily mean you were an animal advocate. After taking several animal science classes I saw firsthand how animals raised for food are mistreated. This experience (and the video “Meet your Meat”) led me to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle again in 2007. 

I didn’t learn the term “vegan” until I was an adult volunteering at an animal shelter. This idea of someone who not only enjoyed a diet free from eating animals or anything that came from an animal, but who also lived a more compassionate lifestyle by not wearing animals or using products that were tested on them, appealed to me as a person and resonated with my core values. In 2009 I was accepted to a summer internship at Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, N.Y. and this is when I made the switch to a vegan lifestyle. This is also the time when I became pregnant with my son, so not only did I have to navigate this change, I also chose to do it as a pregnant woman. Whenever someone questions whether veganism is healthy I laugh and say, “I grew a healthy human while eating vegan so I think that you’ll be okay”!

All that has led me to my dream job! I work for the Humane Society of the United States helping institutions such as schools and hospitals to incorporate more plant-based meals into their menus. Within this role I’m also focusing on increasing the number of people of color in the animal protection movement.  There’s a huge lack of diversity which is a hindrance in saving the lives of animals. 

After telling my son that I work to help save animals, he told me that he wanted to help me save animals too. This reminded me that as a parent my #1 job is to teach him how to be a compassionate person in a sometimes uncompassionate world. I am definitely up for the challenge! 

Social Media

Twitter @leolinbowen
FB: People of Color for Animal Protection
Website: http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/eating/meatfree-guide-2011/

FEATURE: Sky Raven The Vegan Poet

Abioseh “Sky Raven” Cole, is a vegan blacktivist, poet, and Hip-Hop Artist, whose work has a strong emphasis on social justice issues across many spectrums. His parents, a biracial couple, were very active in the anti-war protests in late 60's and early 70’s, and helped to organize the anti-apartheid boycotts in CT in the 80’s. His father was an immigrant from Sierra Leone, part Methodist minister, and part clinical social worker, and was very active in the community. His mother became an advocate for children and families with developmental disabilities, after one of his sisters was born with a rare syndrome that took her life as a teenager, when Sky Raven was 14.

That was the same year Sky Raven got serious about his writing, which was mainly Hip-Hop, an interest he was able to pursue in a Recording Technique’s class at his high school, and then even further at the
Hartford Conservatory of Music where he studied record production. In 1996, about a month before his 16th birthday, his father passed away after a 2-year battle with Colon Cancer that started with a western
oncologist, and ended with a traditional Chinese doctor. His father’s journey made Sky Raven question everything he had been taught to believe about food, medicine and the entire food and drug industry.

After some reading that included an American Cancer Association reference book circa 1996, where he read that colon cancer is “caused by stress on the intestines which is caused by eating meat,” Sky Raven became vegetarian in January of 1998.  In 2000, while studying at University of Ghana at Legon, Sky Raven came across a book called Back to Eden, by Jethro Kloss, a book that helped him to transition to a vegan diet by December of 2000. However, because it was mainly for health reasons, Sky Raven still purchased some non-food animal products until spring of 2015, when he started working with Direct Action Everywhere (DXE), an animal rights organization, and the first that he had worked with. They inspired a piece that would become the reason Sky Raven became a poet. It was called I Am Not Food, and it was originally done for a DXE speak out from the perspective of farm animals, and it was recorded and later performed as a Hip-Hop piece.

However, Sky Raven found it to be much more effective as a spoken word piece, and started his journey as a poet. At the same time he went through a rite of passage with the indigenous Tsa-La-Gi Choctaw Intertribal Nation, after which he was named Sky Raven. This marked a complete change in direction in many ways both personally and professionally. As a poet, Sky Raven has performed at Connecticut College, the Nuyorican Poets Café, the Cantab, the Lizard Lounge, and astounded the vegan activist community with his performance at the World Vegan Summit.

Social Media

Facebook: @SkyRavenTheVeganPoet

YouTube: Sky Raven The Vegan Poet

FEATURE: Courtney

As a child it was rare that I would finish an entire serving of meat. In 2008 I realized that I only consumed meat if it was heavily seasoned and covered in a lot of dressing or sauce. I realized I enjoyed the sides of my meals more than the meat. I found a local vegan restaurant with wonderful people that introduced me to veganism. I started to incorporate vegan meals into my diet but I was still consuming meat and dairy.

About two years ago I became a pescatarian and eventually a vegetarian. I intended to stick with eating a vegetarian diet. One day while watching television I watched a show that had absolutely nothing to do with veganism. It showed a beautiful farm with a cow eating grass. They went on to show the cow exploring the farm throughout the show and gave the cow a number. Suddenly the farmer made the cow walk into a shed. The next scene was of a package of meat with a separate piece of paper with the cows number on it. That changed my entire mind frame instantly and I have been on a vegan journey ever since. Each day I am learning more about veganism and how it is much more than just a diet. 

Social Media

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/courtneyveg/

FEATURE: Lamar Ita

Without a shadow of doubt in my mind, I can confidently say that making the decision to adopt veganism was the single most significant decision I have made in life.
 
After losing my first proper job in late 2013, despondency and demotivation enveloped my whole psyche. My days were generally spent idly watching television and scrolling aimlessly through my social media feeds. In this period though, I was put onto veganism after discovering an Instagram account belonging to the prominent London based vegan chef “King Cookdaily”. At the time I started following him, he was posting videos on a daily basis of the gorgeous elaborate smoothies he was creating. I was inspired! With a new lease of life, I would wake up early in the morning, go to my local supermarket to spend what little money I had on fruit and return home to make smoothies myself and my mother, all the while applying for work as aggressively as possible.

My interest in veganism as a movement was further piqued when I watched a documentary on Netflix, a film by the name “Vegucated”, which spoke not just of the benefits of a vegan diet for personal health and wellbeing, but also the severity of the suffering farmed animals are made to endure and exactly how damaging modern animal agriculture is for Earth’s environment. It took one watch for me to be moved to action; by the end of that film, I knew that I had to make a marked change to how I “undertook eating” and I immediately stopped eating chicken, beef and pork, dropped fish and seafood some months later and over the course of the next year, began to abstain from dairy, eggs and honey.
 
Having made this decision to take a firm stance against animal oppression has definitely aided the galvanization of my entire belief system, purely because it incurs the criticism of so many people I interact with. I’ve been called all manner of homophobic and misogynistic slurs by supposed “friends” and had my racial identity questioned on countless occasions by both fellow blacks and non-blacks, simply because I refuse to consume meat. As a young black man, becoming vegan has given me a very effective means of ascertaining who around me is clinging to bigoted viewpoints, particularly relating to white perceptions of the black male’s sexuality. Not only have I been  able to refine my social circle by weeding out those with regressive ideologies about social issues, but I have also had my powers of debating in virtually all things cultivated, as my values are constantly being challenged by others around me.

In addition to all this, with my self-discipline, motivation and creative abilities at an all-time high, I have been weaving my views about rejecting animal derived food into the lyrics of the music I make, using my voice as a means of expressing myself. Considering all this, I wouldn’t go back to the way I lived and ate before if I was paid.
 

Social media:

Facebook - Lamar Ita
Instagram - @themasterofic
Twitter - @themasterofIC
Soundcloud – soundcloud.com/masterofic/kitsune

FEATURE: Missa Thompson

My name is Missa- as soon as I saw an opportunity to share a story with Black Vegans Rock, I thought of how I felt in college, when I was slogging away at a treadmill for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, eating "high protein" meals because I thought it would help me lose weight and not feel terrible anymore. When a doctor told me that I was borderline hypertensive, I knew something had to give. But it was when I got food poisoning-twice!- from poorly prepared meat that I realized how unsustainable my lifestyle was.

I watched a video called "Meet Your Meat", which made me so angry at what my choices were doing to animals, sentient beings who feel pain as I do. I decided to go vegan right away.

Fast forward ten years later, I am in better shape than I ever was, and have reaped more health benefits than I thought possible! I feel proud that each day my life is a peaceful one, knowing that I can make a choice to do no harm to animals.

FEATURE: Celia Bruner

My decision to become vegan has been a few years in the making. I wanted to make this change to live cruelty free, to reduce my carbon footprint, and to help save animals. Growing up, you just do whatever it is your parents are doing for the most part. So, you get into a routine and develop habits. As I got older and was exposed to new things, I began to form new ideas and opinions.

I've tried in the past to become both vegan and vegetarian and these tries would last a couple of months and eventually I would "fall off the wagon." At the beginning of this year, I finally made the decision to fully commit to being vegan. I had some concerns, one being giving into my cravings for meat and two, being able to find vegan and cruelty free products, such as toothpaste, shampoo, cleaning supplies, etc. 

Now, I was never a huge meat-eater in general, but as soon as I would try to stop eating meat, I would always have cravings for burgers and steaks. To help stop these cravings, I began watching documentaries about the meat industry and how animals are really treated. Doing this helped a great deal. Now I can't stand the thought of eating meat. To find vegan and cruelty free products, I just did a Google search and tons of websites came up and I was able to find many lists to use when I go shopping. I also needed a support system because no one close to me is vegan or even vegetarian. So, I began to follow accounts dedicated to veganism on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. This has been helpful to me so I can stay focused and stay on track. I wanted to educate myself as much as I could about what it means to be vegan and I continue to read and do research. I have wholeheartedly committed to being vegan. I have no regrets about becoming vegan and it has been one of the best decisions I have ever made.