The Kentucky Faith and Public History Education Project is
committed to telling the stories of famous Kentucky Christians who were public
about their Christian faith. This week we consider one woman whose reputation
is controversial today because it intersects with the racial divisions and the
way they have been articulated over the past 200 years in America. By sharing
this information with your youth group, perhaps you can guide the conversation
to be about reputation and legacy – how to live so that what people remember
about them is consistent with their core values and commitments.
It was 1893 in Chicago. Grover Cleveland was the president
of the United States. The Civil War was over. Formerly enslaved African
Americans had been emancipated thanks to President Lincoln for thirty years.
The Chicago World’s Fair was the main event, at least for white people. Very
few African Americans were able to enjoy it. Some African Americans worked at
the fair doing menial jobs. A few Black performers were more prominent. Frederick
Douglass, the famous abolitionist, spoke there. Some people remember what he
said. But everyone in attendance saw one woman, who had been born into slavery
in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, telling stories and cooking pancakes. Her name was
Nancy Green. More than 50,000 people got a pancake she made in the exhibit for
Aunt Jemima Pancakes. She was so popular that, after the fair was over, she
received a lifetime contract to travel throughout the United States
representing that brand. Her fame helped her raise over $3 million for
charities like the Rock Island, Illinois Boys Club. She was a leader at her
church, the largest Baptist church in Chicago, Mt. Olivet Church. Many African
Americans had moved to Chicago to find work. The church was where they learned
the ropes of living in the city, where they found new friends, and where they
were led to commit to live a Christian life. She died after being hit by a car.
The problem is that Nancy Green’s life was forgotten so much
that she was buried without a tomb-stone. What people remember is the
character she played. It offends people today because they feel that she
allowed herself to become a racist symbol that the Quaker Oats Company
exploited for the money. The Ferris State University’s Jim Crow Museum includes
Aunt Jemima as an example of “Anti-Black Imagery”[1].
What do you think Nancy Green would have said if someone
accused her of being a symbol of “anti-Black” propaganda? In 2017 Lexington’s
Lyric Theatre hosted a performance, “Nancy Green: Being Aunt Jemima the Pancake
Queen” starring Debra Faulk. The promotional literature about the performance
states- “She was a real Kentucky hero: a
community activist, philanthropist, and church missionary”[2].
The article goes on to say: “Green became
one of the first prosperous African American women in the United States, and
she used her wealth to empower her community.”[3]
The president of the Bronzeville Historical Society told NPR
journalist, Katherine Nagasawa that “removing
the Aunt Jemima image could erase Green’s legacy – and the legacies of many
Black women who worked as caretakers and cooks for both white families and
their own”. She said, “I look at
Nancy Green as a Black mother figure, and Black women are the lifelines for
generations, both Black and white”[4].
We’d love for you to post comments telling us what your
youth group members say when you ask them what there is to learn from Nancy
Green’s story and what they want to be remembered for.
By Lesley Barker ©2020
[1] https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/antiblack/.
ACCESSED 12/17/2020.
[2]
Lyric Theatre and Cultural Arts Center. “Nancy Green: Being Aunt Jemima the
Pancake Queen”. ONLINE at https://www.lexingtonlyric.com/event.php?id=1118.
ACCESSED 12/17/2020.
[3] IBID
[4]
Katherine Nagasawa. “The Fight to Preserve the Legacy of Nancy Green, the
Chicago Woman Who Played The Original ‘Aunt Jemima’”. Chicago’s NPR News Source
WBEZ. June 19, 2020.
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