She lay still until she was sure they were gone.

Her son confused and scared, cried soft.

She'd been beaten and races had stolen everything they owned,

but they were both still alive.

Oh God, she swore, this would never happen again.

This is two-minute black history.

What you didn't learn in school.

Melinda Russell was tired of being stolen from by white thugs.

Her prosperous business had been ransacked by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War.

She'd been robbed again as she and her disabled son fled north.

She needed a way to protect them both.

Russell had become wealthy with her incredible baked goods and her diverse high-end entrees.

She was determined to find a way to keep white marauders from ruining her by generating an

untouchable stream of income.

How on earth could she achieve this?

She wrote a cookbook.

Unlike so many black folks, her work wouldn't be stolen by white women who poorly copy black

recipes and took all the money and the credit, but could a mere cookbook protect her against

leaving races and poverty?

Yes, it did that and more.

Her cookbook was the first written by a black woman and it directly disproved the widely

helped belief that black women were too incompetent to bake and were best at preparing leftover

...