CNN, June 2, 2019: Chef Leah Chase, civil rights activist and legendary ‘Queen of Creole Cuisine,’ dies at age 96
Born and raised in Louisiana during the segregated Jim Crow era, Leah Chase worked as a server in New Orleans’ French Quarter in the early ’40s. After she married local jazz musician Edgar “Dooky” Chase Jr. in 1946, the couple took over his father’s bustling sandwich shop in the predominantly black neighborhood of Treme. They transformed it into an elegant sit-down Creole restaurant and African American art gallery — something virtually unheard of during a time of rare black-owned businesses.
She fed presidents and Freedom Riders. She broke New Orleans’ segregation laws by seating black and white patrons together. And she helped mend the country’s divisions, one meal at a time. In her seven-decade culinary career, Chase did far more than introduce thousands to Creole cuisine.
