(pensive music) - [Jim] From West Africa to St. Louis to a PBS cooking competition that made Adjo Honsou a celebrity.

- So for me, the Great American recipe was a platform to share my cooking and to share my culture and to expose that.

We did it!

(audience cheering) - [Jim] These middle schoolers are going to the store but not to buy.

Nope.

They're helping stock the shelves with what they've grown in their in-school farm.

- [Nicolle] And so we call ourselves Produce Pioneers.

- [Jim] This art first appeared at a time of unrest and activism.

Why it's still worth looking at today.

- I like to describe it as kind of art therapy for the entire community.

- [Jim] And we look back 70 years to this station's very first hour of programming and why St. Louis worked so hard to get it on the air.

- Got excited about this the more I thought about it.

- Sometimes the most important things are the hardest to talk about.

- It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(jazz music) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) I'm Jim Kirchherr and we're back.

Had a pretty good summer, but frankly not as good as a Adjo Honsou's summer.

The St. Louisan became something of a celebrity on national TV on PBS because of her skills in the kitchen and in the process, she also turned the humble oxtail into something of a star.

Veronica Mohesky has the story.

(audience cheering) - [Veronica] St. Louisan Adjo Honsou is the season three winner of PBS's "The Great American Recipe."

But St. Louis isn't the only place she represented on the show.

- I was born originally in Togo, West Africa.

We moved to the US when I was 14-years-old.

- [Veronica] On the show, Honsou focuses on dishes that come from West African culture, many of which are also served at her food truck called FUFU n' Sauce.

On June 17th, Honsou hosted a premier event in Tower Grove Park so that friends and fans could watch the first episode while enjoying some of her food.

- The meals that you can find at our food truck include our nationally famous oxtail in palm nuts stew with fufu or jollof rice.

We also have meals like our egusi stew, which is our vegan and vegetarian option.

We have our hibiscus tea, fried plantains, and also some beef stew.

- [Veronica] And if you're not familiar with some of these foods, that's okay.

Honsou is working to change that.

- I wanted to be the person that brings it to St. Louis the right way.

And so that's the reason for starting FUFU n' Sauce and also to share the authenticity of my culture with the St. Louis community and the diaspora.

- [Veronica] Honsou says this is one of the biggest reasons why she wanted to be on the Great American recipe.

- I remember being a 14-year-old kid, 15-year-old kid here in America and taking food to school and kids not knowing what it is and making fun of that food and being forced to eat in school bathroom stalls because I didn't wanna be make fun of.

I didn't wanna be the butt of all the jokes of what I'm eating and things like that, right?

So for me, the Great American recipe was a platform to share my cooking and to share my culture and to expose that.

- [Veronica] Honsou was scouted for the show by a casting director who heard about her cooking talents through the International Institute and the Festival of Nations.

The Great American recipe follows eight home cooks from across the country as they compete weekly with their best recipes.

But it's not a cutthroat competition.

- We became a big happy family, you know, learn each other's recipe, gave advice on recipes and things like that, and learned and coach so it was such a great environment.

Even today, we have like a group test going that we all communicate with each other.

We share things that are happening with each other and we, you know, congratulate and just push each other and we wanna see each other be successful and each other wins.

- [Veronica] Honsou saw a great success while sharing her Togolese dishes.

- You know, being the kid that ate in the bathroom 'cause people made fun of my food to serving that same food to, you know, Michelin Star judges and chefs on a national platform.

And they're loving it and it's their first time trying it, and they are having such great compliments about it.

It just affirmed that, hey, African food is great, like I've always known, it's just a matter of people giving it a try.

- [Veronica] But she didn't always come out on top.

- It was definitely a roller coaster ride and it keeps you on your toes and you don't get comfortable and confident.

- [Veronica] After Honsou returned from the show, FUFU n' Sauce opened its own commercial kitchen on Enright Avenue.

- And we have the food truck posted up front so you can either order online through our website, you can order through our app and pick up, or you can just walk up to the truck.

- [Veronica] FUFU n' Sauce has also started a GoFundMe campaign for a brick and mortar restaurant.

On August 12th, we spoke with Adjo about her win at the finale watch party event at Nine PBS.

- Winning the Great American recipe is definitely the pinnacle of my career so far as a chef.

It is even sweeter that I won cooking the food that I grew up eating and sharing that culture with everybody.

- Really good.

(audience laughing, murmuring) - I truly believe when I started FUFU n' Sauce that my goal and my purpose here is to share my African culture and cuisine with the world.

I wanted to be able to put that representation out there because that representation was not something I had growing up here and even going to school here and stuff like that.

So when people come to the truck and they say, "Hey, you made this thing on the episode two, I don't know what it's called, but it had the spinach in it.

That's what I want."

It makes me smile so largely because that is why I did the Great American recipe.

It's so people that know nothing about my cuisine can see it and just be curious to try it.

We did it!

(audience cheering) - Our "This Week In History" segment is about us, Nine PBS, that is.

We're celebrating our 70th birthday.

It was on September 20th of 1954, we became one of the first in the country to go on the air as what was then called an educational TV station.

It was a modest beginning to say the least.

There were no network shows, limited hours of programming, not much money, but we did have a staff and volunteers and a community that thought this was a really good idea.

(gentle music) The TV schedule shows just one program that first night called "Open for Discussion," and it introduced St. Louis to a new kind of television station.

In fact, the general manager, Martin Quigley, had to explain that there would be no commercials and therefore, there would be a limited budget and lots of talk because well, talk is cheap.

Well, he said, "Inexpensive to produce," but he also said it would be "Educational and informative."

- On the basis of race, creed, or color.

- To give everyone equality under the law.

- [Jim] KETC would be what he promised, a place of discussion and debate of important issues.

In fact, on the second night, the premier of Soap Box featured a debate about the route for extending the Daniel Boone Expressway to create today's Highway 40 corridor.

Maplewood and Richmond Heights were opposed to the route and instead of the scheduled half hour, we just let it go on for an hour.

Without any network programs to hit, we could have a flexible schedule.

In 1954, we could do what we wanted.

- In just a few moments, Ran Lincoln, the chairman, will call the fifth session of free assembly to order.

- [Jim] This is exactly what St. Louis's Educational TV Commission had in mind when they jumped at the idea of having a non-commercial station.

The late Ray Wittcoff was the chairman.

- Got excited about this the more I thought about it.

It seemed to me to have enormous possibilities.

(jazz music) - [Jim] Evenings would be a few hours of adult-oriented programming, a few hours in the daytime were for children.

One of the main jobs in these early days was broadcasting lessons to classrooms.

Schools were short of teachers and filled with baby boomers, but we took it a step further producing an afterschool program called "The Finder," that we put up against "Howdy Doody."

One of the first guests was Stan Musial.

The host of "The Finder," the finder himself, was Sonny Fox, who before this had never been on TV.

He'd answered an ad, came to St. Louis, auditioned, and got hired.

- It was an adventure.

It really was an adventure.

It was the new game in town.

And the great thing about television in those days was nobody could tell you what you couldn't do because nobody had any idea what you could do.

- For example, a Greek philosopher by the name of Hero some 2000 years ago invented a jet engine.

- Well, now hold on one minute.

Did you say 2000 years ago?

- Yes, 2000 years ago.

- And a jet engine?

- Yes, I have one here.

- [Jim] This was no live talking head show.

It was recorded and shared with other educational stations and Sonny Fox would get noticed and go on to a successful TV career in New York and became a network executive.

A lot of Nine PBS's first employees were of the generation that had lived through the Depression and World War II.

They were young, smart, creative.

They were risk takers.

- So all I could do was just sort of go with it.

The other thing that was exciting was all these other people who had shown up to be part of it.

- My name's Ran Lincoln.

Tonight we're gonna talk about bad housing.

- Ran Lincoln, who later, you know, became very big in Chicago.

Mayo Simon, who later became a screenwriter.

- [Jim] Before Charles Guggenheim won Academy Awards for his documentaries, he came to St. Louis to put this new kind of TV station on the air.

- In New York, I worked three years for a very successful independent television producer, but I had come outta World War II and I didn't think I wanted to spend my life dealing with advertising people.

- They were young and excited.

They thought this the new thing.

Television is really is taking over.

So they were excited about it and it was lots of fun.

(swanky jazz music) - [Jim] One of the challenges for the new station was, well, there wasn't actually a station until a new building could be built.

The first program 70 years ago came out of the women's gymnasium in Washington University's McMillan Hall.

- And they made it into a studio by the simple expedient of putting plywood on the windows.

- [Jim] Guggenheim, the first station manager asked the station board for money for soundproofing.

- And I said, "Well, it's not very much money," but he says, "But it's money."

I said, "That's true."

He says, "Why don't you just hire a student to stand outside and say, 'Sh.'"

- [Jim] But they managed.

After all, they were only broadcasting a couple of hours a day at the start with a lot of evening programs talking about art, about literature, and about the challenging topics of the day, integration, transportation, housing, featuring diverse voices from the community.

(stately music) - Our first witness is Mrs... - [Jim] It was different.

And it wasn't just because the host could smoke at the anchor desk, but he might also tell viewers when it was time to stop watching.

- At the end of phase one, we'll ask you to turn off your set, discuss the merits of the views you heard, and phone in your reactions, your suggestions and your questions.

- And there was no money involved.

There was no, you know, nobody was worrying that it would blow $5 million worth of bad show, you know, something of that sort.

So they left you alone, you know, they said, "Okay, here's the studio.

Here's 45 minutes.

Here's no production budget.

Here's your cameras.

Do a show."

- Could I have your name?

- That was the beginning of what I think is a sort of a lifetime arc of a challenge of how to use the power of television, for more than just selling products.

- [Jim] Because of the work of government, business, education, community leaders and citizens, St. Louis was one of the first cities in the country to have an educational TV station.

"The Globe Democrat" called it "A major civic accomplishment."

In the coming years, KETC would have its ups and downs, its fans, and its critics, still does, but one of the first producers expected and even welcomed that.

- Sometimes the most important things are the hardest to talk about.

- So they started giving people something to talk about, 70 years ago, this week in St. Louis history.

(pensive music) The school year is well underway, and there was a time when rural school districts took what they called a harvest break this time of year.

It was so kids could stay on the family farm and help get the crops in.

Well, times have changed and Leah Gullet's story is not about sending students to the farm.

It's about taking the farm to the students.

- [Leah] No matter what background or circumstance you come from, everyone deserves the best education.

This is one of the goals of an independent institution in South City, St. Louis, Marian Middle School.

It was started by seven communities of Catholic sisters and several lay women in 1999.

They felt like the education of young girls in St. Louis' urban communities was being overlooked.

Today, it's the only faith-based private middle school in the city serving urban adolescent girls.

- So our curriculum, we have our basic classes, math, science, social studies, language arts and religion.

And then the rest, we kind of open up to partnerships that we already have, ideas that staff have, and then student interest.

- [Leah] What we specifically stopped by to take a look at today is how they're combining STEM with home economics.

- We call it the Aeroponics class.

We are also participating in the Green Schools Quest project for the state of Missouri and so we call ourselves Produce Pioneers.

We have a gardening program that we've been doing for a few years and we wanted to sort of take it up a notch with the hydroponic system.

So if you've heard of hydroponics, it's growing plants with no soil.

They still need the water and light.

We put nutrients in the water.

The difference with hydroponics and aeroponics is that the aeroponics are vertical, and so the water gets pumped up to the top of the tower and then drizzles over the roots instead of the roots sitting in water.

(gentle reflective music) - Right now I'm picking dill.

As you can see, there's a lot right here.

This one grows pretty much a lot.

A couple weeks ago we made dill dip, which was pretty good.

- [Leah] The produce is used to contribute to their school lunch, and it allows them to try new recipes.

- In science class, we're often learning about things like photosynthesis, even water, pH levels, things like that.

This is a perfect application for a lot of the content that we teach.

- [Leah] You can imagine how many greens could be grown with all these hands involved.

So instead of keeping it all to themselves, they package a lot of it up for a nearby grocery store.

- That the partnership with Local Harvest started because the Tower Garden is so well kept that it just produces at an enormous rate and we couldn't use everything.

And I've lived in this community for over 10 years now, and I go to the grocery store all the time.

I go to Local Harvest and the idea just popped in my brain of saying, "Well, why don't we just share it with people?"

(gentle music) (footsteps lightly tapping) (gentle music) (car engine humming) (gentle music) (door squeaks) (gentle music) - The girls are coming and dropping off every now and then, every couple weeks.

They drop off, we make some room in our display here and we put up a nice sign that says where it came from, and it has the information on the bags for customers to contact them with how they're using the produce, which is really fun.

- And so whenever you pick up a free bag, there's a sticker on it that asks, "Can you please send an email to the class with a photo or the recipe and just share how you enjoyed what we produced."

And the community outpour was fantastic and continues to enrich the class, my staff and the students.

They feel the impact of something so small, but everybody else is enjoying it or the community enjoys it.

(gentle music fades) - Finally, a story by Anne-Marie Berger.

It's about the arts.

It is also about the issues.

(somber music) - [Anne-Marie] August marked 10 years since the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson.

Communities and organizations across the region marked the anniversary with art exhibits, discussions, and memorials.

The passing of 10 years also means that there's a whole generation of young people who weren't born or were too young to remember what happened on Canfield Drive and the events that took place in the following weeks and months, which makes preserving what happened there, the tragedy that took place, the heartbreak of a region and the resiliency of a community that much more important.

- I mean, people would just literally find a spot and paint was donated and other people would bring their paints and they'd just start painting.

- [Anne-Marie] This is Carol Klein.

- But I like the message, "We matter together."

I think that's nice.

- [Anne-Marie] I first spoke with her in 2015.

At that time she was writing a children's book called "Painting for Peace in Ferguson."

- [Carol] The book is really empowerment.

It's really about using whatever tools that you have to make your community a better place.

- [Anne-Marie] Klein was referring to art.

After the unrest, following the grand jury's decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown, many small businesses in Ferguson were left heavily damaged or destroyed.

- I grew up in Ferguson.

I just came down there saying, "Well, I can do something.

I'll go and, you know, support small businesses on Small Business Saturday."

I literally saw hundreds of artists come out and they were taking just blocks and blocks and blocks of boarded up buildings and transforming them into these incredible works of art.

And I was just overwhelmed.

And I decided there and then that I was gonna write a book!

- [Anne-Marie] Klein's book was about these artists who in uncertain and scary times, came together to help and lift a community with their messages of truth, hope, and irrepressible spirit.

It was a success.

She gave all the prophets to the community and that could have been it.

- We'll know what to do.

We'll bring out our paints, red, yellow, and blue.

- [Anne-Marie] But it wasn't.

- So after I wrote the book, I started talking to some of the store owners because they didn't have any place to store their art.

And I said, you know, "If I take good care of it, would you let me use it in hopes that it would be displayed someday?"

- [Anne-Marie] Why?

What did you think having these in the future was gonna do?

- So you know, you're supposed to have a plan and a blueprint and fig- None of that was the case here.

This was all just really serendipity.

(pensive music) - [Anne-Marie] Klein started hauling the murals away in the back of her minivan.

She managed to save more than 50 pieces from the Ferguson and Delwood areas, and for years stored them in various places.

And they were seen in a few exhibits, but finding them a permanent home on permanent display was always her goal.

Were you ever feeling a burden of, "I have these things.

These are important.

I've taken this on and I need to make sure something happens?"

- Yes, exactly.

Then we had this little thing called the pandemic hit.

So I didn't really have an opportunity to go around and show people what these were and where they could be placed.

And I had kind of a nightmare scenario that they would be scattered all over the city.

It was really important to me that these not go into private collections.

It was a gift from the community to the community.

And I felt it was really important that it stay accessible to the community.

- [Anne-Marie] Yeah, and your serendipity came in the form of Maxine Clark.

- Absolutely.

- Let's go in front of the healer.

One of my very favorites, especially with all the bandaids.

- [Anne-Marie] During the pandemic, Maxine Clark, founder of Build-A-Bear, was transforming a vacant 100,000 square foot building on Del Mar Boulevard, a passion that was also inspired by what happened in 2014 and the issues of racial inequities.

- It's right after Michael Brown had been killed in Ferguson.

I was sitting with children talking to them and listening to what they wanted and needed.

And all of those things existed in St. Louis.

They just didn't know where they were, how to access them.

And I started thinking then that, you know, what can I do?

Now that I know there's this issue, what can I do to correct it?

- [Anne-Marie] Clark developed the Delmar Divine in an effort to create a neighborhood of education, healthcare, and community development nonprofits that work together to affect change.

- And she's ready to open the building at the end of the pandemic.

And I'm looking for somewhere that has a lot of room.

So I put a couple of feelers out, one of which was to Maxine, sent her an email and literally 15 minutes later, she responded, and said, "I'll take all of 'em."

And I was like, "Wait, Maxine, there's a lot."

And she's like, "I have a lot of walls."

(laughing) - She had it in storage for all those years, just hoping that there would be one place that could house them all.

And when I knew we could, I said, "We can have it all."

- [Anne-Marie] So Klein got to work.

She hired artists to restore and protect the murals, professional curators, design the layout.

- We kind of did three dimensional Tetris on an enormous scale because some of these pieces are 25 feet long by eight foot high.

And how do you get them to fit and how do you have a theme that kind of works?

But we were frankly, only had the Ferguson paintings, and we were running outta paintings.

- [Anne-Marie] 44 murals from Ferguson were on the walls at the Delmar Divine.

But remember, it's a huge building and there's a lot of space.

St. Louis University saved the murals made for the businesses in the South Grand neighborhood.

And Klein received 33 of those to complete the installation.

77 murals in total.

- I like to describe it as kind of art therapy for the entire community.

- You know, every day that I look at it, I walk in, I am so happy that what we're doing here, but it's also enhanced by the ability to see that even though the artist may not have known they were building something or painting something for a long time, they were just trying to protect those buildings and heal themselves, that they would be healing 10 years later, 20 years later, hopefully, and 30 and 40, maybe a hundred.

(reflective music) (jazz music) - And that's "Living St.

Louis."

Thanks for joining us and feel free to send us your comments and your ideas to NinePBS.org/LSL.

I'm Jim Kirchherr, thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.

(jazz music) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) (jazz music continues) - [Announcer] "Living St. Louis" is funded in part by the Betsy & Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.