The National Council of Negro Women was founded in 1935 by Mary McLeod Bethune as a nonprofit "organization of organizations" to advance opportunities and the quality of life for African-American women, their families, and their communities through research, advocacy, and national and community-based services and programs. In 1986 NCNW organized the first Black Family Reunion Celebration, which spawned the series of Black Family Reunion cookbooks. Dorothy I. Height is chair and national president emerita of the NCNW. She worked on the original Historical Cookbook forty-two years ago. The original editor, Sue Bailey Thurman (1903-1996), was the wife of Howard Thurman, the spiritual adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr.