Celebration to follow program complete with food prepared by Washburne Culinary students and City Colleges’ chefs using the recipes in the donated cookbooks.
Kennedy-King College and Washburne Culinary and Hospitality Institute to accept historic and culturally significant cookbook donation of 1,700 cookbooks from the Free Frank McWorter Family.
The cookbooks were lovingly collected by Sandra Rosalie McWorter Marsh, the great-great-granddaughter of Free Frank McWorter. She collected the books for decades and they range in age from the 1930s to the present day.
“We want to give the cookbooks to Kennedy-King College because Chicago has done so much for us, and it is where they will be put to good use and the recipes kept alive by the next generations,” said Abdul McWorter Alkalimat, the great-great grandson of Free Frank McWorter, speaking on behalf of his sister Sandra and their family.
The McWorter Marsh Book Dedication and Celebration of Black Culinary History was held Wednesday, February 22, 2023 from noon to approximately 2 pm in the U Building at Kennedy-King College, 740 W. 63rd Street in Chicago. A short program was held followed by a culinary celebration prepared by Washburne Culinary and Hospitality Institute students. The event was free and open to the public.
“We are grateful for the donation of 1,700 cookbooks from Sandra Rosalie McWorter Marsh. She is preserving more than culinary recipes, she and her family are preserving the legacy of the Black American contribution to our country’s culinary history,” said President Katonja Webb Walker, Kennedy-King College. “It’s been said that Black Culinary history is an examination of our past that supports building our culinary future, and I agree.”
During this celebratory event, Kennedy-King College and City Colleges of Chicago leadership thanked and acknowledged the McWorter Family for their substantial and generous culinary book donation. The program included remarks about Black family legacy, Black Culinary history, and the importance of preserving our shared history.
About Free Frank McWorter
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History shares the extraordinary story of Free Frank McWorter. He had planned his freedom for many years and as an enslaved person, was able to save money, purchase his wife’s freedom, and then negotiate his own freedom from a Kentucky planter in 1819 at the age of forty-two. Soon after, he purchased his oldest son. Over his lifetime he would go on to purchase his remaining thirteen family members. In 1830, McWorter migrated with his family members to the Illinois frontier near the Mississippi River, where he established a farm and founded the community of New Philadelphia, Illinois, the first pre-civil war town established by a free African American. The site was recently designated an National Historic Site and established as the newest national park to commemorate the history of early 19th century Black pioneers in Illinois.
