Can Black and Indigenous Culinary Solidarity Change the World? Sean Sherman and Mecca Bos Hope So.

A Minneapolis dinner series — led by Sherman and his life partner Bos — aims to end white supremacy by building connections at the dinner table

After the opening of Minneapolis Native American restaurant Owamni, Sean Sherman, an Oglala Lakota chef, pivoted to a new level of visibility, winning the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in the United States for 2022. Owamni embraces the ideals of the Indigenous Food (Re)volution that Sherman has spread for years through his brand The Sioux Chef, but this time in a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

Almost a year after Owamni opened, I became intrigued by a different direction Sherman was taking with his romantic and business partner, Black Minneapolis food writer Mecca Bos — coalition building with different groups of people of color, focusing on the connection between Black and Indigenous food.

In 2022, Bos and Sherman started a new nonprofit organization called the BIPOC Foodways Alliance, highlighting multicultural histories of food traditions through dinners and community building to dismantle white supremacy. In May 2023, the duo led a tasting menu at Platform, the new James Beard Foundation chef-in-residence program, serving dishes such as jollof rice with mango and scotch bonnet pepper and smoked goat mushroom egusi with fufu and dried collards.