Keith moved with his family to Logan, Utah in 1958 where his father worked for Morton-Thiokol testing Minuteman Missiles while he worked on his Masters Degree in zoology at Utah State. Coincidentally, C.T. Butler's father also worked at Thiokol in Utah during this time. However, Keith and C.T. did not meet until 21 years later at a protest of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station in 1979. After leaving Thiokol, Keith's father worked for the National Park Service and Keith lived in the National Parks at Yosemite (CA), Yorktown (VA), Grand Canyon (AZ), Big Bend (TX), Shenandoah (VA), and the Everglades (FL). By the fifth grade Keith started camping in the wilderness on his own. He played in the wild desert of Big Bend, Texas joining in games of basketball with the Mexico kids across the Rio Grande. He was stricken with cholera and the only one of 27 who lived.
In 1974, Keith began studying painting at Boston University and worked afternoons, weekends, and summers as a tour guide and museum curator at the historic Old South Meeting House where the Boston Tea Party began. After college, Keith worked three years for the National Park Service at Fire Island Seashore as a sign painter and two years giving presentations about colonial New England at Boston National Historic Park. When he returned to Boston he worked many places including the Boston Paint Company, Budget Car Rental, Reilieys Roast Beef, and at the famous Passim Coffee House in Harvard Square. Keith also made trips to Seabrook, New Hampshire to protest Nuclear Power and organized actions in Boston, New York and Washington D.C. for peace in El Salvador and Iran, alternative energy and organic gardening as well as protests against the draft, drug testing, the Contra War in Central America, the nuclear arms race and many other issues.
Keith started an advertising firm called Brushfire Graphics in Boston in 1979. He designed calendars, ads, and brochures for the Boston Celtics, the Boston Red Sox, the Environmental Protection Agency, and a multitude of commercial and alternative businesses. He won several Clio Awards for his designs. His anti-nuclear war street art became the subject of an Off Broadway play called Murder Now! and a film called The Sidewalk Sector. Years later he worked as a graphic designer for Hallmark Cards and produced a full color weekly magazine in Kansas City.
Keith and seven friends started Food Not Bombs in 1980 out of their collective house in Cambridge. They participated in street performances with music, theater, puppets, literature, movies and food every week in Harvard Square, provided food to most of the housing projects and shelters in the Cambridge area, produced a free concert with free food in a park, organized and provided meals at protests all over the east coast. After eight years of serving free food and doing graphic arts work in Boston, Keith moved to San Francisco where he started a second Food Not Bombs group. Since then, Keith has been arrested over 100 times for serving free food in city parks and he has spent over 500 nights in jail. In 1995 Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Rights Commission joined thousands of supporter in working for his release. He faced 25 years to life after being framed under the California Three Strikes Law, because of his Food Not Bombs work. He also co-authored and illustrated the book Food Not Bombs: How to Feed the Hungry and Build Community which has sold more than 10,000 copies in four languages. The 20th Anniversary English edition was published in Tucson by See Sharp Press.
His work with Food Not Bombs also appeared in Amnesty International's Human Rights Report in 1995, No Trespassing by Anders Corr, Interviews With Icons by Lisa Law and in Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. There is a chapter about him in 50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know by Mickey Z and his work on the UnFree Trade Tour are detailed in Por el Reparto del Trabajo y la Riqueza by Jose Iglesias Fernandez published in Madrid, Spain. The movements Keith helped start are featured in a number of books including Recipes for Disaster CrimethInc. ex-Workers' Collective, Food Not Lawns, How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community, by Heather Coburn Flores and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America's Underground Food Movements by Sandor Ellix Katz. Keith's character has appeared in several novels including Walking to Mercury by Starhawk and Homes Not Jails by Michael Stienburg. He is also featured in a number of documentaries including The Art of Being Mayor by Steve Tobin, Flashing on the Sixties by Lisa Law and The Sidewalk Sector by Richard Kaplin. For the entire list of books visit the Food Not Bombs books webpage.
He was the recipient the 1999 Local Hero Award by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Resister of the Year in 1995 and the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness gave him the Advocate of the Year Award in 2006. Keith was also a pioneer in the Low powered FM radio movement and a co-founder of San Francisco Liberation Radio. He is a co-founder of the October 22nd No Police Brutality Day protests and he helped start Indymedia and the Homes Not Jails squatters' movement in the United States. He coined the term "freegan" while dumpster diving in Edmonton, Canada on the Rent Is Theft Tour. In 1997 Keith helped organize and participated in the UnFree Trade Tour of North America where the idea to shut down the World Trade Organization in Seattle was first proposed. He has been maintaining the Food Not Bombs web site since 1994 and he still updates many of the movement's publications. Keith has been touring the world helping start Food Not Bombs groups and supporting existing chapters. He is also writing a book about the movement and his travels will be part of a documentary filmed and produced by Australian journalist Liz Tadic. Liz featured Keith's work in Nigeria on SBS-TV's Dateline. In 2005 Keith was busy coordinating busloads of food and kitchen equipment to the areas devastated by Katrina. Also in 2005 NBC-TV reported that the Pentagon classified a 2004 protest Keith helped organize against torture as an on-going, creditable terrorist threat. According to internal government documents the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force has been investigating and disrupting Food Not Bombs groups in Arizona, California, Colorado, Texas, North Carolina and many other states. Keith's name was in a New York Times article where they published a U.S. State Department list of the 100 people who were not free to travel outside the country to attend protests. Even so he still travels often and has visited Food Not Bombs groups all over Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas.
He is currently focusing his attention on building the Food Not Bombs movement, resisting domestic surveillance and political repression in the United States. He helped open the Taos Peace House and Infoshop volunteering with the local collective. He also enjoys working with his partner Jill Rounds on their organic garden and working on local community projects. He enjoys swimming, riding his mountain bike, hiking, camping and cross country skiing. His main passion is painting, drawing, graphic design and illustration. He has been showing his art in galleries. He lives with his partner Jill Rounds and three happy dogs in their ger (yurt) in the mountains outside Taos, New Mexico. Keith is attending Prescott College majoring in art and social justice. His is taking classes in nonviolent social change, social movements, democracy, globalization, painting and drawing. You can see his art and learn more about Keith on the website below. He also works with Jill at Homefree a project that helps home owners pay their mortgage in a fraction of the time. Jill is also an artist and has worked with textiles, natural dyes, clay and she paints in watercolor and mixed media. Keith is also the co-founder of the Taos Peace House and Infoshop. He helps staff the peace house and works with events.
