Before the names Julia Child and Martha Stewart came about, there was Lena Richard.
She was the first Black woman in America to host her own cooking television show. In the 1940’s, Blacks were still facing a lot of discrimination, including finding jobs and having careers. Lena was able to achieve much success.
Not only was she on television, she also owned two restaurants, had a frozen food business, she wrote a cookbook that sold nationwide and she opened her own culinary school to teach cooking and home economics to aspiring Black chefs. Lena Richard was a forgotten pioneer.