After slavery was abolished in 1865, many racists had to make their own breakfasts. But one Missouri businessman thought he had the solution: a “slave in a box.”
Based on the minstrel song “Aunt Jemima,” in the 1920s the Aunt Jemima breakfast brand was designed to attract middle-class housewives. Aunt Jemima was a “mammy” character rooted in nostalgia for the plantation culture of the antebellum South. If people couldn’t have real slaves anymore, they’d have the next best thing.
With the name of the brand established, the company had to make up a character and give it a story. This character was Jemima the slave. She worked on the Higbee plantation in Louisiana and “was known all ovah the South fo' huh cookin' skill, specially fo' huh pancakes.’”
In the 1960s and afterwards, the company tried to update this racist logo, but no matter how hard it tried to “modernize” Aunt Jemima’s appearance by removing the headscarf, brightening her complexion, and adding pearl earrings, the offensive stereotype lived on until the name and image were removed from the product in 2021.
The history of the Aunt Jemima brand shows how companies dehumanize Black people to promote products and services. We have too much buying power to allow this to continue. We deserve a future where we are respected rather than caricatured and exploited.