The History of Black People in Advertisements and Commercials
By: Lamont Pearley Jr.
In everyone's day-to-day life, they receive some form of information or entertainment. Whether it is on Television, Youtube, Movies, Billboards, Radio, and Newspapers. Everything I mentioned has one major thing in common, Commercials and Advertisements. The difference between the two is Commercials are usually broadcasted on Television or Radio, and Advertisements are usually Print Media. Commercials have been around since 1941 and Advertisements have been around since the early 1700s. The very first Commercial was aired for the Bulova Watch Company. The ad was only 10 seconds long and cost between 4 - 9 USD. Today, there is a big jump in price points since Commercials aired during the Super Bowl costs 7 Million USD for 30 seconds. Along with the origins of Commercials, there is a history of Black presentation in advertisements.
Black People weren’t always treated well throughout history and Commercials weren’t the exception. Black people were being used as a way to sell products to people, some examples being Aunt Jemima, Uncle Bens, and The Quintessential Mammy. The Quintessential Mammy is a stereotype depicting Black Women who work in White households and take care of children. She is usually visualized as a fat, dark-skinned woman with a motherly personality. This was the woman that was not only pivotal in the black community, but raised the children of white plantation owners, making her a comfortable image to white America. An article published by raceandethnicity.org explains Ads like “The Gent in the Window” are created as ways to promote their product and make White People feel comfortable reading these ads. From 1830 up until 1941 whenever a black person was shown in an Advertisement it was racially offensive. In 1948 Jax Beer created a Commercial called “Whistle up a party”, the first non-racist African American Commercial. This made an impact on how Black People would become viewed in Ads for the future.
Starting in the 1960’s the Civil Rights Movement made African American Advertisements an important issue to fix. Don Cornelius intentionally utilized black Advertising companies and businesses for Soul Train. An article on Soul Train by theguardian.com quotes Don saying “I want black folks to be seen how black folks should be seen: strong, powerful, and beautiful”. Soul Train was something black families could always look forward to watching, knowing that their people were being represented in a good light. John H. Johnson founded Ebony and Jet Magazines in 1945, the first Black Owned Advertisement company. Ebony and Jet Magazine published an issue in 1955 showing Emmett Till's dead corpse in a casket. During the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, Ebony and Jet Magazines published multiple magazines about political events involving activists protesting racial violence and advocated for increasing social mobility for African Americans across the diaspora. The peak of Ebony and Jet Magazine was in the 1980s when they had a circulation of 2.3 million. In 2021 the changes that the Civil Rights Movement was fighting for became implemented on products such as Aunt Jemima brand changing to Pearl Milling Company. Uncle Ben’s also changed in 2020 from “Uncle Ben’s” to “Ben’s Original”. Due to the civil unrest that was going on in 2020 the majority of Commercials seen on television were related to Black Lives Matter. Companies and Brands were Advertising Black Lives Matter. For the whole month of February, the NBA had Black Lives Matter merchandise and logos on Jerseys.
A lot of historic black people made significant contributions to how African Americans would be viewed in Advertisements and Commercials. Vince Cullers created his own agency called Vince Cullers Advertising. He created this to help showcase and create Ads geared to African Americans. Then there is Carol H Williams. Williams started working in the Advertising Business in 1969 and created her business in 1986. She is the first African American female Creative Director to be inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Fame in 2017.
Currently in media, we see black people in Advertisements all the time, at the very least more than in the past. What made this change happen? Many things. What I do know is the stories I mentioned should be talked about more to usher in a solution for equality.
