Entry · catalog no. 4993
Aunt Jemima
/ /ænt dʒəˈmaɪmə/ /ANT juh-MY-muh
noun · Black American, nationwide · 1950s
✓ Verified
1.
A Black woman judged by other Black people to perform deference or servility toward white people — especially one who polices other Black people on their behalf, or who trades on a nurturing, non-threatening image for white approval. The female counterpart to Uncle Tom, and frequently paired with handkerchief head. It is a charge of betrayal, not simply of personality.
“Cut that Aunt Jemima routine, these people are not your friends.”
Origin & Attribution
The name is older than the brand. "Old Aunt Jemima" was written and performed in 1875 by Billy Kersands, a Black minstrel performer, and may itself have been adapted from an antebellum work song. Chris Rutt heard it in 1889 and took the name for a pancake mix; the milling company then embodied the character in Nancy Green, a formerly enslaved Black woman hired to portray her. The epithet grows out of the mammy caricature and the brand image together, and it is used by Black people about Black women — Green's Dictionary of Slang labels this sense US Black usage. It was firmly established by the mid-twentieth century and sharpened through the civil rights and Black Power years.
1875
Billy Kersands, a Black minstrel performer, writes and performs "Old Aunt Jemima"
1889
Chris Rutt takes the name for a self-rising pancake mix; Nancy Green is later hired to portray the character
1958
Chester Himes writes the epithet into Black Harlem speech in The Real Cool Killers
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Black American, nationwide · 1950s
Spoken by
Black speakers nationwide, particularly in political argument within the community
$AUNTJEThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady68 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
50/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1958
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Chester Himes, The Real Cool Killers, p. 59
1958
■
+ Cite a sourceIrving Lewis Allen, The Language of Ethnic Conflict, p. 47
1983
See also