In May 1940, Duval County became the first county in Florida to be approved to administer the Food Stamp Plan. In the first month alone, the program proved its worth. Sales of food stamps topped $50,000 in Duval, the equivalent of over $1 million in 2024 dollars.
Soon after the program started in Duval, the Food Stamp Plan was also implemented in Hillsborough County. At its inception, Hillsborough officials estimated that the program would benefit about 40,000 people and increase business for grocers by more than $1 million a year. During the first few days of the program, more than $3,200 in stamps were distributed to Tampa residents — $71,000 in 2024 dollars. The initiative was so successful that, after Tampa temporarily suspended the Food Stamp Plan pending the county’s approval of additional money needed to run the program, women took to the streets in protest. Among the picket signs that they carried were ones that read: “Please place upon my grave— ‘Starved in a world of plenty.’” and “We are human, we must have bread.”
Still, the requirement that forced households to purchase their food stamp coupons kept many unemployed or underpaid Black Floridians out of the program. In 1940, Florida’s Black population was more than twice the national average.