Sunday Dinner

Reflections on a Black Family Tradition

This Sunday, my son and I took my husband out to a local high-end BBQ restaurant to celebrate Father’s Day. When we arrived for our 4:45pm reservation, there were already a few tables filled and several people at the bar, with others steadily pouring in. Within about 30 minutes, most tables were filled by families with father figures. That’s when I noticed something odd: every single customer was Black. “We in here today, ain’t we?” I said to my husband.

Now I live in Atlanta, so a nice restaurant full of Black people is fairly commonplace. But this wasn’t a Black-owned spot on the west side or in College Park. While the restaurant owner is a non-Black person of color, the place is in downtown Stone Mountain…yeah, that Stone Mountain. Still, what made it weird was that this is a highly beloved restaurant in a diverse area that strongly supports local businesses. On that day, I just expected the clientele to reflect the diversity that was characteristic of the positive reviews in our (very active) community Facebook group.

It wasn’t until about 5:30pm that the first White family entered, followed by a trickle of others. That’s when it hit me. “Oh, Black people eat early!” I said to my family, laughing. In fact, we had originally made our reservation for 4pm, but the restaurant called and asked us to push it back to allow them more time to transition from their brunch service.

Somehow I’d momentarily forgotten what had already been a topic of conversation in my family. “Why are we eating dinner at 3:00?” my son once asked. “ I don’t know. It’s just what Black people do,” I told him.

At least in the South, African Americans have traditionally eaten Sunday dinner early, often around 3pm. We do the same for holiday meals, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. I thought eating a huge meal at mid-afternoon on Sundays and holidays was the norm for everyone until college when my White friends and I would compare holiday menus and traditions. In addition to the weirdness of White people having mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie on their menus, I found it odd that their extended families didn’t gather until 6pm or later.

But I never thought to question why Black people in the South eat early on Sundays. Until this weekend, when I did a little research (okay, I googled it).

The first reason, of course, is racism (readers, that is always going to be the first answer). From slavery until the mid-20th century, the only day that Black people were allowed not to work was Sundays, and then often only until late afternoon. After slavery, when many southern Black women worked as live-in domestics for middle and upper-class White families, Sunday was the day that they were allowed to go home and care for their families after a week working 12-16 hours everyday for White employers. Because they were often expected to be back at work by Sunday evening, they cooked and served their own family’s dinners early. In other words, Black families eat early on Sundays because historically our mothers had to leave us to take care of White families. Sunday afternoon was the one period that Black women could put their own families first.

Check out this 1912 interview with a Black woman about the labor conditions of domestic workers

The second reason is Jesus. Okay, not really (and yes, I know, if I were really a “proper” Christian, then Jesus would have been the first reason). The reason is actually the Black church tradition of offering dinner after Sunday worship. Cooking and eating may have been part of the hush harbor worship practices of enslaved Africans. After slavery ended and Black people began to establish their own churches, they often held “dinner on the grounds,” essentially congregation-wide picnics. Sometimes people brought their own meal. Other times churches sold or provided free meals. Holding dinner right after worship served multiple purposes: fundraising for building and church programs, fellowship, and even keeping people around so they’d attend the afternoon service. Often, though, it was a way of pastors providing meals to people who might not otherwise be able to afford it.

The third reason is closely connected to the first two: essentially, Sunday dinner has always been about more than food for enslaved and oppressed Black people. Captured in the classic movie Soul Food, Black family Sunday dinners are miniature family reunions, gatherings of extended kinfolk around favorite foods. In my own family, they were held at my grandparents’ homes and included aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends. We didn’t just eat (although we did that well). We told stories (including stories about racism), laughed, played cards, and danced. We took a break from the code-switching required of working in White spaces and integrating White schools (my parents were in the second class of Black students to integrate their high school), Sundays allowed for unadulterated, unapologetic Blackness.

Sunday dinner has always been about more than food for enslaved and ppressed Black people.

In an article for Parents.com, A. Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez writes: “Sunday family dinners, and other similar gatherings, presented an opportunity for Black families to be in community with those they loved most with meals that nourished them physically and emotionally. The classic comfort foods—fried chicken, collard greens, mac and cheese, rice and beans or peas, and lamb and goat for some —were a feel-good reset button.” Sunday dinner helped us to release the stress of the past week and get emotionally and spiritually ready for the week ahead.

It’s been a long time since my family gathered on Sundays with any regularity. All of my grandparents are gone now. And in the hustle for economic mobility, we are more geographically scattered than we used to be, spread across and beyond the city. And the busyness of 21st century life makes it harder to get together the way that we used to. But more and more lately, I feel the need for that Sunday reset button.

And just like my elders and ancestors, I want it to start early in the afternoon, around 2 or 3pm.