“The racism they talk about, using images from slavery, that comes from the other side — white people. This company profits from images of our slavery. And their solution is to erase my great-grandmother’s history. A black woman… It hurts.”
Quaker Oats has announced the permanent withdrawal of the brand, whose emblem features a black woman named Nancy Green, once enslaved. However, sources indicate that Quaker Oats only referred to her as a “storyteller, cook, and missionary worker.”
The “Aunt Jemima” brand name was first used when Green was contracted to serve pancakes at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. A Quaker Oats representative saw Anna Short Harrington serving pancakes at the New York State Fair and decided to adopt the name “Aunt Jemima” after her passing in 1923. Larnell Evans Sr. claims that Anna Short Harrington was his great-grandmother, who took on the role in 1935.
Evans remarked, “She worked for Quaker Oats for 20 years. She traveled all across the United States and Canada, making pancakes as Aunt Jemima for them.”
“This woman served all those people, and it was after slavery. She worked as Aunt Jemima. That was her job… How do you think I feel as a black man sitting here telling you about my family history that they’re trying to erase?”
