Ebony magazine's test kitchen finds permanent home in D.C.

Why it matters: Johnson Publishing put out the first issue of Ebony in 1945 "to provide positive images for Blacks in a world of negative images and non-images," according to its founder John H. Johnson.

• Editors at Ebony and Johnson's Jet magazine, which launched in 1951, tested recipes in the kitchen for popular columns like "Date with a Dish" that celebrated Black American food.
• "We didn't have the Food Network," Joanne Hyppolite from NMAAHC tells Axios. "You had to turn to a cookbook or you turn to the magazine."

What they're saying: The recipes "capture the national and global range and interest in Black foodways and embraces the diversity of Black foodways," Hyppolite says.

• "I think the Ebony Test Kitchen illustrates the Johnson Publishing Company's ability to assume agency and control over Black culinary representation," she says.

Flashback: Columbia College acquired Johnson's Chicago headquarters, at 820 S. Michigan Ave., in 2011, selling it to a developer in 2017.

• Landmarks Illinois bought the Ebony Test Kitchen a year later for $1.

Fun fact: General Electric advertised in the magazines and provided the kitchen's appliances, including a trash compactor and a microwave oven in 1972!

What's next: Hyppolite says the kitchen is the third-largest object the museum has acquired, so there are still details to figure out before the public can view it. But she says displaying it at the museum is important.

• The NMAAHC is also working with Getty to digitize thousands of images from Johnson's incredible archive.