AP Photo/Donald King
My colleague wrote a great piece earlier on Aunt Jemima changing its name to something that was just a horrible new name that sounded like a gravel mining company, Pearl Milling, but that also hearkens back to some of the racist history of the company.
But there’s another thing that some are afraid of. A lot of people don’t know that the brand was based upon the faces and/efforts of real women. Among those women were Nancy Green, Anna Harrington and Lillian Richard. Their family members were concerned that the removal of the picture and changing the name further erase the real contributions of their family members who helped to make the brand.
Families of Aunt Jemima Models Want More Than Just a Brand Change Aunt Jemima Families of Models . Want More Than Just a Brand Change
Aunt Jemima s name and face are now scrubbed from the breakfast products she s fronted for more than a century a move in the right direction, but far from enough to do justice to the women who served as her model . so say their descendants.
Lillian Richard and
Anna Short Harrington both served as models for Aunt Jemima at different points in the early 20th century, well before the most recent version with the woman in pearls.
Quaker Oats announced they’d change the brand name back in June, saying the product is based on a “racial stereotype.”
“We recognize Aunt Jemima’s origins are based on a racial stereotype,” Kristin Kroepfl, a spokesperson for Quaker, said in a press release. “As we work to make progress toward racial equality through several initiatives, we must also take a hard look at our portfolio of brands and ensure they reflect our values and meet our consumers’ expectations.”
The character was inspired by the 19th century “mammy” minstrel character which was a black woman who was happy to serve her white masters. Nancy Green, a former slave, was the first face of the product back in 1893, according to NPR.
Aunt Jemima is just one of the iconic brand names to fall in recent months as a spotlight was placed on corporate brands and team names that were based on.