The heirs of breakfast icon "Aunt Jemima" claim they are owed billions in profits that Quaker Oats has made by exploiting their relatives' image and recipes during the 19th and 20th centuries, citing a decades old agreement that Quaker Oats says never existed, the Courier Journal reported.
Nancy Green, the first Aunt Jemima, and her successor Anna Short Harrington both provided their image and southern recipes to help make the company a trusted household name for self-rising pancake mix.
But the company owners never paid Green, who was born a slave in 1834, and Harrington a fair share of the profits, taking advantage of their lack of education and the unfair social status of black people under the law at the time, according to the lawsuit filed by Green's family and Harrington's great-grandsons.
"Defendants were in position to exploit Nancy Green, and Anna Harrington, that came from plantations," reads the lawsuit filed in Chicago in August, according to the newspaper.
At the heart of the $2 billion lawsuit is whether or not a contract existed between Green, who died in 1923, and Harrington, who assumed the Aunt Jemima role in 1935. It was allegedly Harrington's idea to add potato grease to enhance the pancake recipe.
"Aunt Jemima has become known as one of the most exploited and abused women in American history," D.W. Hunter, one of Harrington's great-grandsons, told the Courier Journal.
Quaker Oats, however, claims that not only was there never a contract, but Aunt Jemima was not a real person.
"The images symbolizes a sense of caring, warmth, hospitality and comfort, and is neither based on, nor meant to depict any one person," the company said in a statement obtained by the Courier Journal.
"While we cannot discuss the details of pending litigation, we do not believe there is any merit to this lawsuit," the statement continued.
Present day Aunt Jemima no longer wears a red bandanna while promoting her "'licious, jiffy-quick pancakes," reads one advertisement. The current image is reportedly that of Harrington's daughter, shown wearing pearls with curly hair.
But for Diane Roberts, author of "The Myth of Aunt Jemima" and Southern culture professor at Florida State University, Aunt Jemima still represents a grim element of American history when Jim Crow was the status quo.
"Just because the Civil War was over more than 100 years ago, Jim Crow doesn't go away," she told the newspaper.
