There it stood; a grave unmarked. “Nancy Green” was inscribed atop the grave– but nothing more. Any unheeding person may have simply carried on– not thinking anything of it. Albeit, it wasn’t just any ordinary person who noticed the grave. Erick Johnson, editor at Capital B, had just found a story. Nancy Green, better known as “Aunt Jemima” was a slave who had turned into an American advertisement icon as the face of pancake syrup in 1893. For almost 100 years, no one could locate her grave. That was until Sherry Williams, president and founder of the Bronzeville Historical Society, unraveled this decades-long mystery around 2005. “I look at Nancy Green as a Black mother figure, and Black women are the lifelines for generations, both Black and white,” said Williams. Williams found Green’s grave in Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois. …
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