In the 1890s, white entertainers loved using blatant racism for cheap laughs: blackface galore and endless offensive stereotypes.
But one minstrel show delighted two white advertisers so much, they decided to use the mammy character’s image on their newest product: pancake mix.
Slapping a racist cartoon on a pancake box wasn’t enough for these advertisers, however. They wanted to use a living, breathing person to embody the “mammy” archetype and promote their product.
Nancy Green became their walking Aunt Jemima.
Born into slavery in 1834, Green took the gig as a corporate model. She would travel and pose as Aunt Jemima at thousands of shows, preparing pancakes with a happy persona - as a good mammy would.
The company made promises to Green that she’d receive royalties and fair pay for her image and labor … but she was mostly compensated with white lies.
Still, she used her platform to advocate for equal rights. While working as Aunt Jemima, she participated in Chicago-based anti-poverty programs and performed missionary work, until a fatal car crash abruptly ended her life in 1923.
But even in death, she lived on as Aunt Jemima.
Exploitative advertisers dehumanized this living woman by turning her into a minstrel character we know today as Aunt Jemima. Whenever you see her image at the grocery store, choose to remember Nancy Green instead of the “mammy” she became.