Meet Cubby

Kwabena “Cubby” Nkromo is a grassroots civic leader, better food policy advocate, Green Party organizer, and congressional candidate whose public life has been shaped by decades of community service, citizen-led governance, institution building, and independent political action.  Nkromo’s political formation began in his hometown, the historic Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, where exposure to native Black American political thought, neighborhood activism, and community-development institutions helped shape his understanding of citizenship and power. His early influences included political scientist Dr. L. Mudavanha Patterson, community activist Sadiki Kambon, and organizer/Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner. 

That early political education developed into organized service through his membership in the Shrines of the Black Madonna of the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church regions of Atlanta and Houston. His subsequent public work has crossed neighborhood organizing, street ministry, housing justice, Green Party politics, electoral campaigns, urban agriculture, food policy, and community local economic development. In Atlanta, Nkromo became active in the West End Neighborhood Development civic organization before being elected as Vice-Chair and later Chair of Neighborhood Planning Unit T, part of the city’s formal system for citizen participation in municipal government. 

Nkromo later became active in housing justice and independent political organizing, including Occupy Atlanta, Occupy Our Homes Atlanta, the Georgia Green Party, and the Fulton County Green Party Affiliate, which he resuscitated and chaired. He sought election to the Georgia House of Representatives in 2012 and Stonecrest City Council in 2021. Lack of election to actual office did not end his public work: following the Stonecrest campaign, he continued advancing ideas involving government accountability, local currency, composting, sustainable urban agriculture, food-system development, and community economic development. 

Agriculture and local food systems eventually became another major expression of Nkromo’s political philosophy. His Farmer Citizen framework and accompanying Food Citizens Movement treats food, land, local enterprise, community ownership, and regional food systems not simply as agricultural concerns, but as questions of economics, political power, democratic participation, and ultimately the ability of communities to rebuild at the level of root civilization.

 Now organizing in Michigan and seeking election to Congress from Michigan’s 10th Congressional District, Nkromo views elected office as one instrument of public service rather than its source. His candidacy asks a larger question that has inspired him throughout his public life: How can ordinary citizens build institutions, exercise meaningful democratic power,  trengthen their communities, and translate political ideas into practical action?  His campaign for Congress is the present assignment not the beginning of the story.