Jessica B. Harris '68 Donates Items to Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Jessica B. Harris '68 was featured in this "CBS This Morning" piece on the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Harris donated items from her family's home in Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard for the museum's “Power of Place” gallery. An expert on the food and foodways of the African Diaspora, Harris also served as a consultant for the museum's cafeteria. 

Harris has spent much of her career researching, preserving, and promoting African and African-American contributions to the culinary field. Her most recent book, High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America, with a foreword by Maya Angelou, won the International Association of Culinary Professionals' Food History Award in 2012.

A professor of English at Queens College, CUNY, Harris has more than a dozen cookbooks to her name and hosts “My Welcome Table,” a monthly radio show on Heritage Radio Network about food, travel, music, and memory.

Learn more about Harris at www.africooks.com and in the November 2015 issue of the Alumnae Bulletin.