Last week, the journalist, TV host, and carpenter Ananda Lewis passed away at 52. The Howard graduate and two-time NAACP Image Award recipient hosted an eponymous talk show in the early 2000s and a revival of the home-improvement series “While You Were Out” in the late 2010s,

As a Black female voice in media, Ananda Lewis’s impact broke many invisible barriers, challenging stereotypes and paving the way for the generation that followed.

Ananda Lewis, a former MTV VJ who connected a generation of music fans to their favorite celebrities in the network’s heyday, has died. She was 52.