"The Black Family Dinner Quilt Cookbook" by Dorothy I. Height, President, & The National Council of Negro Women, Inc. (1994 First Fireside Edition)
The introduction: "A downtown Washington, D.C. office building on a hot Sunday afternoon in midsummer seems an unlikely place for a cookbook to begin. In fact, that is where The Black Family Dinner Quilt Cookbook had its birth. Four women gathered to talk that day over Louisiana Crunch Cake and Shortbread Cookies. A more dissimilar group of women would be hard to imagine. The foursome was made up of these: a mature African-American educator and elected school board member, a mother of three who had just turned forty and decided that her true vocation was to write, a white, Southern publisher with a mission to create books that strengthen the sense of community through the meal, and Dr. Height herself. Originally, the subject we had planned to discuss was the vision Dr. Dorothy Height had for a center to serve as a meeting place, archives and clearing house for all that had to do with African-American women. But Dr. Height, in her own inimitable way, directed the conversation first to her mentor and guiding example, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of the National Council of Negro Women, Inc. The rest of us, who never had the privilege of meeting Mrs. Bethune, sat spellbound as Dr. Height shared stories of meals and experiences in which Mrs. Bethune played a central role. The stories, so personal and fascinating, captured our imaginations. We realized, as the conversation progressed, that it was Mrs. Bethune's legacy embodied in Dr. Height's vision that animated us all. It was that powerful legacy which led us to seek a way to capture the reality and the energy of two of the twentieth century's most remarkable women. The stories, the experiences and the memories formed a colorful quilt that wrapped us all in an exquisite warmth that had nothing to do with the sweltering summer day outside. We sipped cold diet soda that day, instead of the genteel cups of hot tea that Dr. Height told us Mrs. Bethune so favored. Dr. Height told us how she learned from Mrs. Bethune that more business could be done and more decisions made over a dinner table than over a dozen conference tables. Our experience that afternoon supported the theory. We left the office building in the early evening to gather again at a neighborhood restaurant where we were encouraged to sample a dish unfamiliar to several of us...Jamaican Jerk Chicken. We continued to talk, asking Dr. Height to tell us more about Mrs. Bethune and about herself. Dr. Height smiled warmly and began to reminisce. It was as if yesterday and today were meeting again, and Dr. Height was revisiting a place in time left only hours ago instead of over 50 years past. Here is what Dr. Height told us that day: "I first met Mrs. Bethune because Cecilia Cabanis Saunders at the YWCA gave me a weekend assignment. My task was to escort Eleanor Roosevelt into a meeting Mrs. Bethune was hosting at the Harlem Y. There were three entrances to the building in those days...each door was labeled... there was Administration, Residences and Service. You can't imagine, but the First Lady could get into her roadster and drive from Washington, DC, park on a Harlem street, go into a meeting, stay for an hour or two, get back into her roadster and drive herself on to Hyde Park. There was no Secret Service with her, no advance team, no fanfare. She just came alone. Of course I was excited and eager to do a good job. You can imagine my surprise when a maintenance man came running to get me. Mrs. Roosevelt had come into the center door...the service entrance! I had to run down the hall myself to head her off! I could just see my little job blowing out of the window if I failed! I succeeded in intercepting and escorting her into the meeting. She stayed and participated in the meeting. As I escorted her out of the building, where she needed me ever since. Mrs. Bethune pulled my dress and said to me, "What is your name?" I told her and she said, "Well you must come back, we need you." And as you can see, I've been That was the day I met the two women who outside of my own mother had the most powerful influence on my life." When we asked Dr. Height what it was about Mrs. Mary Bethune that had such a profound effect, she answered, "Mrs. Bethune was a magnificent human being. She was just thoroughly human in a way few people are. She had such a sense of humor...in fact her sense of humor was as keen as her spirituality was deep. She had a capacity to grasp the big issues, keep them in perspective and understand what was happening to people because of the big issues. Her faith was so real that she would sometimes tell us at the Council that we had to all get down on our knees and pray over something that we couldn't handle by ourselves. Think of that, just telling your staff to pray for a solution...and the solutions always appeared!" As Dr. Height talked, we realized that the things she admired in Mrs. Bethune were the very qualities we saw and respected in her.. humanity, spirituality, vision, wisdom and humor. We asked her what Mrs. Bethune was like in action. "Oh, she had a sharp sense of the political. Her uncanny ability was to make people act their better selves. She put people into positions where they had to be better than they might ordinarily have been, because she depended on them to be the best. She understood the federal establishment inside out and she understood organizations perfectly. It was her view that we didn't need another organization, we just needed to harness the ones we had. That's how the National Council of Negro Women, Inc. came into being. Mrs. Bethune knew about the nature of power too. She understood how it is possible to influence what happens to you. I never heard her refer to African-Americans as a powerless people. She was fond of saying that if I take a finger and touch you, you may not feel it. If I touch you with two fingers, you'll know that you have been tapped. But if I join all my fingers together and make a fist, I can deliver a mighty blow! I remember once toward the end of her tenure at a meeting in New York, a group of women arrived ready to unseat Mrs. Bethune. They were agitating for change by telling everyone that Mrs. Bethune was old fashioned, an Uncle Tom, not modern enough to lead anymore. They never sat down to talk with her about these concerns though. Mrs. Bethune didn't mince words. She spoke very calmly to them and said something like, "If you see Mary Mcleod Bethune's petticoat hanging, don't tell everyone else... tell her. She's the only one who can do anything about it." That pretty much ended the discussion. Dr. Height continued sharing stories about Mrs. Bethune and Mrs. Roosevelt throughout the meal. It was clear that both women were in fact tremendously powerful factors in the development of Dorothy Irene Height. The Black Family Dinner Quilt Cookbook is the story, not only of those two powerful influences in the life of Dorothy Irene Height, but also the story of Dr. Height's own powerful influence on the people with whom she has shared meals throughout her long and productive life. Many of those people say that when they sat down and broke bread with Dr. Height, they experienced the power of her energy and her vision, and when the meal was finished they found themselves nourished, not only in body, but in mind and in spirit. Part of her legacy is this restoration of the possibilities which lie dormant in us all. The lives of Mary McLeod Bethune, Eleanor Roosevelt, Dorothy Height and all the people who have come in contact with Dr. Height form a marvelous fabric that is not seamless, but is quilted together by the threads of shared experiences. The quilt, made up of these lives, is varied and colorful. Pieced together out of scraps...moments of conversation during meals eaten in places high and low to push open a door to the past. This cookbook captures some of those memories. It also explores quilting as a metaphor for communication, fellowship and the richness of sharing between women of all races. We trust that it will become part of your own legacy for the future. Brenda Rhodes Cooper January, 1993"