We Fight for Freedom, Not Crumbs: What a Failed Campaign Taught Us About Power
- 15 hours ago
- 6 min read
August 17th, 2026
By Kima Wassel Hardy, Urban Agroecologist & Founder, Earth Innovation
I would like to begin this story at the end.
On June 1, 2026, the Honolulu Charter Commission officially killed a historic and unprecedented community-led effort to enshrine food as a human right within the local governance structure of the City and County of Honolulu, Hawai'i.
The proposal was simple:
“The residents of the City and County of Honolulu shall have the inalienable right to nutritious, affordable, and culturally appropriate food, including access to traditional and locally grown food sources, necessary to maintain health, dignity, and well-being.”
After months of testimony, organizing, drafting language, gathering endorsements, and building community support, the proposal was rejected.
To many, this was a defeat. But I believe it is the beginning.
Because the real lesson of this campaign was never about food policy. It was about power.
The Campaign
The effort began with a simple observation: despite living in one of the most agriculturally abundant places on Earth, hundreds of thousands of people on Oʻahu struggle to eat. Rates of food insecurity among families with children accelerate, not due to a lack of food, but of access.
Farmers face rising costs, disappearing land, labor shortages, invasive species, climate disasters, and economic pressures that make local food production increasingly difficult. Our island imports the overwhelming majority of what it eats.
The contradiction is obvious.
Food is essential to life. Without it, no other right can be exercised. Yet food remains treated primarily as a commodity rather than a public responsibility.
Inspired by global Right to Food movements and grounded in Hawaiian traditions that recognize collective stewardship and reciprocal obligation, a coalition of advocates began asking a simple question:
What would it mean for Honolulu to affirm that food is a human right?
The answer seemed straightforward. Through the Charter Commission process—a once-a-decade opportunity to amend the city's governing document—we proposed language establishing a local Right to Food. Alongside it, we supported a Food Security Fund that would provide dedicated public investment in food procurement and distribution.
At first, Commissioners told us it was impossible.
Then they told us it was unnecessary.
Then they told us it was symbolic.
Eventually, they told us they supported it.
And then they killed it.
How It Unfolded
Throughout late 2025 and early 2026, community members testified repeatedly before the Charter Commission. Farmers, food justice advocates, Native Hawaiian leaders, educators, health professionals, and residents spoke about hunger, food insecurity, cultural food traditions, and the need to build a more resilient local food system. The proposal gained momentum.
Commissioners expressed interest. Staff requested revisions. Meetings were held. Language was refined. Supporters spent hundreds of volunteer hours responding to concerns and incorporating feedback. Many of us believed we were participating in a democratic process. What we eventually discovered was that the process wasn’t meant for us.
As the proposal moved through committee review, opposition emerged not from the public but from within the Commission itself. Technical objections appeared. Corporation Counsel questioned whether the City & County of Honolulu possessed the authority to enforce such a right. Jurisdictional limitations suddenly became insurmountable barriers. Thirteen people were on the Commission and not one of them was willing to fight for it.
The conversation shifted from whether people deserve access to food to whether government could legally acknowledge that they do. The distinction was revealing.
No one wanted to argue publicly that food is not a human right. Instead, they argued that recognizing it would create obligations. Accountability is often what institutions fear most.
As the months progressed, political calculations became increasingly visible. Support for the Food Security Fund grew, while support for the Right to Food itself diminished. The fund was framed as practical. The right was framed as aspirational.
Investment was acceptable; accountability was not.
In the end, the Food Security Fund proposal advanced. The Right to Food proposal did not.
The lesson was unmistakable. The system was willing to fund food distribution. It was not willing to acknowledge responsibility for addressing why people are hungry in the first place.
Lessons About Power
Every campaign teaches lessons. This one taught difficult ones about power in our current political system.
The first lesson is to assume the status quo.
People in power are primarily invested in maintaining their position within existing institutions. They may support change rhetorically while resisting it structurally. They will encourage public participation, testimony, and engagement. They will celebrate the process.
But process is not power. The purpose of many institutions is not transformation. It is stabilization.
Understanding this reality is not cynicism. It is a lesson that informs strategy.
The second lesson is that your friends on the inside are often imaginary.
Institutional allies frequently function as shock absorbers between movements and power. They offer encouragement and procedural explanations while ensuring demands remain manageable and non-threatening. They will agree privately in principle, but will not publicly support the policy. This does not make them bad people. But it does mean they cannot be confused with being a part of the movement.
Collaboration is always the best strategy, but we must see the uneven playing field for what it is. Real relationships are built on trust, realistic expectations, and actions.
Movements seek change. Institutions seek continuity. The two are not the same.
The third lesson is the most important: Only the people will save the people.
Every meaningful advance in human freedom has emerged because ordinary people created realities that institutions were eventually forced to recognize. Governments rarely lead transformation. They ratify it after the fact.
The abolition of slavery, labor rights, civil rights, women's suffrage, indigenous rights, and environmental protections were all won first through organized people willing to challenge existing conditions.
Rights are not gifts. They are social facts made real through collective action. Sovereignty is not granted, it is affirmed. We change the rules by building the world we want to live in. More important than any policy is practice.
It is time for values-based governance and to hold ourselves to a higher standard of care, across every sector and every level of society. We must build systems of collective wellbeing so resilient and life-giving that the dominant system is transformed.
The Core Question
The campaign ultimately exposed a question larger than food: Whose responsibility is it to enforce human rights?
When a local government says the right to food is beyond its jurisdiction, while simultaneously exercising enormous influence over land use, housing, infrastructure, public health, economic development, and resource allocation, where does accountability exist?
This contradiction sits at the heart of modern democracy.
Human rights are celebrated rhetorically while responsibility for their realization is endlessly deferred. Everyone agrees they matter. No one claims ownership.
Food is the perfect example. The federal government says it is a local issue. Local government says it is a federal issue. Corporations say it is a private issue, influencing public policy and exerting incredible control over how people experience food access and security in our communities every day.
All the while, our people go hungry.
Never Take the Deal
Perhaps the hardest lesson came at the end.
The Food Security Fund advanced while the Right to Food was abandoned. The Fund fits neatly into the existing paradigm. It allocates a predetermined amount of responsibility confined within the status quo, while we continue to live a reality of accelerating suffering that requires innovative solutions.
Many consider this a reasonable compromise. I do not. Because compromises reveal priorities.
A government willing to fund feeding programs while refusing to recognize food as a human right is declaring something important: assistance is acceptable, accountability is not.
Funding matters. And so do our rights. We should fight for both.
Movements must be careful not to exchange principles for proximity to power. Never take the deal that requires surrendering the reason you entered the fight. Do not give them the pleasure of your consent.
We have to let them know: we came to fight for freedom, not crumbs.
The Beginning
The Charter Commission's vote was not the end of the Right to Food movement in Honolulu.
It will be its origin story.
Because movements are not defined by victories. They are defined by the truths they uncover. This campaign revealed the limitations of institutional cowardice. It also revealed the depth of community courage.
Residents organized. Coalitions were formed. Leaders emerged.
And perhaps most importantly, a growing number of people began asking a question that cannot be unasked:
If food is necessary for life, why should access to it depend upon wealth?
While the Charter Commission used its power to reject our proposal, it could not extinguish the idea.
The Right to Food exists whether governments recognize it or not. The question now is not whether institutions will grant us that right. The question is whether we will build the world that already assumes it.
Our work continues. And in many ways, it is just the beginning.
We are grateful to Kima Wassel Hardy for sharing her reflections about this step in Honolulu's right to food journey.
For more on the Honolulu Charter Commission process and lessons for right to food advocates, see related post: Advocate Snapshot: What Honolulu’s Right to Food Charter Fight Taught This Organizer.
