𝗥𝗢𝗕𝗘𝗥𝗧 "𝗦𝗔𝗬" 𝗠𝗖𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗢𝗦𝗛, 𝗔 𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗞 𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗜𝗦𝗧 𝗪𝗛𝗢 𝗠𝗔𝗗𝗘 𝗪𝗛𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗟𝗞𝗦 𝗨𝗡𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗧𝗔𝗕𝗟𝗘

 

Robert "Say" McIntosh in the 80's

From the editor: When I noticed sweet potatoes just 25 cents per pound this week at H.E.B., it occurred to me that I'd forgotten to post Robert "Say" McIntosh's sweet potato pie recipe before Thanksgiving, so I'll post it now just as he wrote it out for me years ago:

"no vanilla, no electric mixer, only sweet potatoes, allspice, nutmeg, eggs, condensed milk and butter."

My version of McIntosh's pie

Who was Mr. McIntosh?

He owned a barbecue restaurant in Little Rock, but was primarily known as the "Sweet Potato Pie King."

His pies were sold in all the major supermarkets in central Arkansas with $1.00 from each pie sold going into a fund to buy toys for children living in impoverished areas, both black and white. Just before Christmas, dressed as Black Santa, he personally delivered the toys.

Now, there was another side to McIntosh that made some folks uncomfortable, his role as a Black Activist or what some white folks in Arkansas called an "agitator."

A frequent guest on local talk shows, McIntosh spoke with a rapid-fire, preacher-style delivery, pushing civil rights in a deep South state with a horrendous record of slavery, suppression and oppression.  For certain, he made some enemies in the state with sometimes outlandish anti-racist protests.

Robert McIntosh on TV talk show

In 1981, McIntosh nearly died after affixing himself to a cross in front of the Arkansas Capitol, during an anti-racism protest against state legislators and former Governor Frank White. 

In another protest, Robert McIntosh cut down a tree planted in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. to protest the Black community's exclusion from Little Rock's political processes.

In 1990, on live TV, he assaulted Ralph Forbes, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor and a white supremacist.  

McIntosh, also an artist, had an extreme dislike for former Gov. Bill Clinton, taking particular issue with the former governor's infidelity, distributing flyers under the windshield wipers of each car in the state capitol parking lot with his own drawings of Clinton and his alleged Black child.

Robert McIntosh honored in 2019

McIntosh passed away in 2023 at the age of 79.