Katina Parker is an American filmmaker and photographer [1] from Durham, North Carolina. She founded the mutual aid group Feed Durham during the COVID-19 pandemic. [2] [3]
Parker grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. Her family included cooks and civil rights leaders, she had a Southern Baptist upbringing, and started taking pictures when she was ten. [4] She graduated in speech communication and fine arts in film production. [4]
Her 2012 photo exhibit One Million Strong documented the Million Man March and ten years of following events. [1] The Triangle Tribune called her work "emotional and thoughtprovoking", saying she was able to "capture intimate moments at the right moment and at the right time". [5] She filmed and co-produced Ferguson: A Report from Occupied Territory (2015), about the reactions to the 2014 Killing of Michael Brown. [4] In 2017, she made the two-part film CALL:RESPONSE for Duke University. The subject was murders of Black people, and it was screened at a panel titled "Visualizing the Impact of Racial Violence". [6]
Parker has been a media strategist for GLAAD, and worked as a teacher and consultant at Duke University. [7] [4]
In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Parker founded Feed Durham, calling it "a scrappy, determined mutual aid collective that came together in answer to mounting hunger in the Durham area". [8] The group cooked food, offered it to people who could pick it up themselves and donated the rest to local charities. [9] [10] Indy Week called the effort "a model for direct crisis activism". [11]
By December 2020 they had prepared 10,000 meals, and by March 2021 they had held seven cookouts, as well as raised over 100,000 dollars via GoFundMe. [2] By November 2022, they had, according to Parker, helped feed 100,000 people with cooked food or groceries. [12]
Feed Durham inspired similar programs in other cities. Parker and others documented the group's activities, and their work was presented in a 2023 art exhibit by the Durham Arts Council, "Lovingly Prepared by: A Multimedia Experience by Feed Durham." [13]
As of 2020, she lives in Durham, North Carolina and has a daughter. [4]