Racism Meet Groundswell

When we think of the year 1888, what do we think of? Any US history buff might think of the general economic growth and the start of our modern city. But for those of us who don’t study history, 1888 is just a year from long ago. It just so happens to be the founding year of The Pearl Milling Company. 

If we have heard of it, most of us don’t know where the name comes from. This is because the name doesn’t really have the “thing” to brand a company for 135 years successfully. What’s the company? Aunt Jemima. The company changed the idea of American breakfast and developed a strong brand recognition amongst the public. 

A year after the company’s inception, they started producing Aunt Jemima’s signature pancake mix. But becoming the famous pancake box wasn’t as easy as changing the name. While the product was brilliant and original, the name Aunt Jemima came from slavery and Black-face comedy shows. So, they had to market their new name as homey, positive, and friendly. This is when they leaned into the “mammy” stereotypes of the times. As the trope goes, a mammy is an older, cheerful, doe-eyed, heavyset Black woman who cooked and cleaned for white families. Wanting to connect this familiarity to their white consumer base, the company hired a real Black woman to bring Aunt Jemima to life Nancy Green.

Ms. Green was born into slavery in Kentucky and moved up north to work in Chicago as a maid. But in 1893, she represented Aunt Jemimas at the World’s Columbian Exposition (the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ first voyage). She made pancakes and shared pre-scripted stories of the Old South. The brand name strengthened as it romanticized the Civil War. The owners officially changed the brand's name to Aunt Jemima Mills in 1914. 

In the coming years, selling the happy-go-lucky mammy figure was key, and the company incorporated cutout paper dolls in the pancake box and sold a rag doll collection and cookie jars to support this “idealistic” society. However, at the heart of their marketing strategy were real Black women posing as Aunt J. While the life-like Aunt Jemimas were key marketing schemes, the company went further and heavily leaned on slavery’s history. For example, Aunt Jemima’s House of Pancakes Disneyland location included a Colonel Higbee character, a character centered around the stories of local slave owners. 

This led society to shift the company’s image due to technology-free ground-swelling. In 1968, the public criticized the brand for racially marketing the image. So, they reduced some key mammy stereotypes by lightening her skin tone, adding a headband (instead of a bandana), and slimming her face. And in 1989, with growing sentiment that Aunt Jemima was the female version of an “Uncle Tom,” they redesigned her again. This time, they removed the plaid headband for pearl earrings and a lace collar, adding grey touches to her hair—becoming the figure we see in modern times, But, despite the growing parallels between these two Black caricatures, Aunt Jemima kept their infamous name…until the power of social media and an earthquake level of groundswell. 

According to the book Groundswell, the “internet in general allowed [people] to connect to each other, to feel unafraid, and to be powerful.1” With the everyday ease of unparalleled connection between people across cities, countries, and continents. As our social and cultural climates shifted, a subdivision of groundswell has been created.  Groundswell is “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.2” 

In turn, anti-racist ground-swelling is a social and cultural movement in which people use technology in order to band together against conventional corporations with the goal of dismantling current racist sentiment.3 Companies and brands are sustainable to this unity as brands are defined by the people (it might be the close capitalism gets to ‘we the people’).4

So in 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, a US reckoning occurred. Many white liberals took off their rose-colored glasses and scrutinized the history and truth behind Aunt Jemima’s smile. In 2021, the product was officially changed to the Pearl Millings Company, regressing back to the company's origins. 

Pearl Millings Company experienced small rebrandings due to public pressures multiple times throughout its tenure. Still, it didn’t aggressively cut ties to slavery and racism until Groundswell and a progressive racial movement joined forces. This anti-racist ground-swelling experience changed not only this 100+ year company but the following brands:

• Edy’s Pie (previously known as Eskimo Pie Ice cream)

• The band Lady A (previously known as Lady Antebellum)

• The baseball team The Cleveland Guardians (previously known as The Cleveland Indians)

• B&G Foods (previously known as Uncle Ben’s)

• The American Football team Washington Commanders (previously known as Washington Redskins)

• Faubourg Brewing (Dixie Brewing)

As these brands listen to the times and consumers, we can understand that grounds-welling can lead to a new future. If we can continue to come together in person and online, we can actively transform our present to make a brighter future––there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it.  

 Footnotes:

1 Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff. Groundswell, Expanded and Revised. Edition_ Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies  -Harvard Business Press (2011) (Kindle Location 209). Kindle Edition. 

2 (Kindle Locations 261-262).

3(Kindle Location 273).

4 (Kindle Location 1279-1282).