Pancakes have two sides

Pancakes have been around for centuries (get it, “a-round”). More than 12,000 years ago, pancakes were made from grains mixed with water or milk and cooked on hot stones. That sounds reasonable since we all know that it is possible to fry an egg on the sidewalk today.

American-style pancakes, made with cornmeal, were called Johnnycakes. Shakespeare mentions flapjacks in two of his plays and in the novel, “The Grapes of Wrath,” when Al announces his engagement to Agnes, they all eat pancakes. Please note that “The Grapes of Wrath” was banned in 1939.

Nancy Green became the queen of pancakes when was cast as the first Aunt Jemima. Green was born into slavery in Kentucky and by the end of the Civil War, she had lost her husband and children. She eventually moved to Chicago with the Walker family as a nanny and cook. The Walkers, a very prominent family, heard about the search by Davis Mills for someone to portray Aunt Jemima for their pancake flour at the Columbian Exposition. They encouraged Green to try out for it — and she got it.

The Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America. It introduced more than 27 million people to electricity, zippers, Ferris wheels, and Aunt Jemima.

Green was 59 years old, with no acting experience, but she sold more than 50,000 boxes of Aunt Jemima pancake flour. Her popularity led to plans to expand her appearances but the backstory created for Aunt Jemima was one of southern plantations filled with happy slaves, loyal to the white families they served. The cheerful, friendly face that smiled at me from the syrup bottle, became a “mammy” stereotype that kept alive the submissive enslavement of Black women.

Black families and communities visit grave sites to remember, and celebrate the lives of their ancestors. Green was buried in 1923, in an unmarked grave. Sherry Williams, president of the Bronzeville Historical Society, spent more than ten years searching for Green’s grave, and she found it in the Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago. In 2020, she was able to dedicate a headstone to preserve the memory of Green, a real woman, who first characterized “Aunt Jemima.”

Quaker Oats acquired the Aunt Jemima brand from Davis Mills in 1925 and, after 131 successful years, has decided it is time to retire “Aunt Jemima.”

South Carolina has their own “Aunt Jemima.” She is buried in the Pickens Chapel Cemetery just outside of Easley. Like Green, Aunt Jemima Pickens was born into slavery and worked as a nanny and cook for a prominent family, Capt. Robert Pickens.

When Capt. Robert Pickens died in 1830, Aunt Jemima Pickens was willed to his son, also named Robert Pickens. Aunt Jemima Pickens was born around 1763 and died in 1868, at the age of 104 or 105, just three years after the Civil War ended.

Tommy Keaton, caretaker of the Pickens Chapel Cemetery, remembers the day Barbara Pickens and her family arrived at the cemetery, looking for the grave of their ancestor. Barbara and her family have a reunion in the cemetery each August to remember their “Aunt Jemima.”

Dr. Andrew Pickens carved her headstone in the 1930s. At the bottom of the headstone, he carved the flags of the nations that Aunt Jemima Pickens had lived under during her lifetime — the flag of England, the flag of South Carolina, the Confederate flag, and the flag of the United States of America.