The Long Life and History of the Ebony Test Kitchens

In 2022, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) acquired the Ebony Test Kitchen—the space used to test and style recipes for the iconic magazine, Ebony , from 1972 to 2010. Noted for its eye-popping colors and technological advances, the kitchen was designed by William Raiser and Arthur Elrod and located in Chicago-based Johnson Publications Company’s headquarters. The Ebony Test Kitchen has garnered significant attention since being saved from demolition in 2017, placed on display in the Museum of Food and Drink’s 2021 exhibition African/American: Making the Nation’s Table, and acquired by the NMAAHC. Public excitement about the NMAAHC shrouded plans for it remains high. This article examines the long life of the kitchen, from its functional origins to its grassroots rescue from demolition to its transformation into a cultural and museum-made object. It also explores the importance of the kitchen as a counternarrative to ideas about food and race that devalue and have stigmatized Black culinary contributions in American kitchens. JPC has been lauded as the company that “revolutionized how Black Americans saw themselves.” This article will illustrate how the Ebony Test Kitchen and its functions transformed the image of Black Americans and food.