America's First Black Corporate Professionals Worked for Pepsi

The speakers are surviving members of Pepsi-Cola's first African-American marketing team in the 1940s: Allen L. McKellar, Harvey C. Russell, Charles E. Wilson, and Julian C. Nicholas. Their audio clips were taken from the Queens Museum of Art exhibition "The Real Pepsi Challenge: Breaking the Color Barrier in American Business," which is on display at the New York City museum through September 7, 2008.

(begin transcript)

Allen L. Mckellar

We didn't ride trucks. That was a no-no. We weren't about to be on a truck with a white driver. That would have been, well, if your status is supposed to be national sales representative, black in particular, you shouldn't be sitting up on a truck because a driver would want you to assist him lifting cases. We wouldn't do things like that so we let them know that immediately. Some of them wanted us, me in particular, to drive with them in the truck. I knew not to do that. I told them I think we could be more beneficial to your business here by circulating in the black community and making appointments, visiting schools, and getting to the masses of people rather than riding in a truck to see a few outlets in the course of a day. We wouldn't do that.

Harvey C. Russell

It was a very old drink, but it had come out as a real Depression drink, "twice as much for a nickel too." You know, it was 12 full ounces. A whole jingle, "Pepsi hits the spot. Twice as much for a nickel too." That commercial was the first singing commercial in the advertising business. Pepsi really just grew very rapidly on the basis of "Pepsi Cola hits the spot." It had sky writing and everything. So Pepsi was very, very strong among Negroes, but it wasn't among Negroes as a class. If you really were striving [to get ahead socially], you would serve Pepsi in the kitchen, but when you had guests, you would only serve Coke in the living room.

Charles E. Wilson

Next morning, I got up and got into one of the Pepsi-Cola trucks in Mississippi. It's 1949 now. This is before the revolution. I'm going down this highway and I look. There's just a few cotton bolls in the fields and there's about 15 little old ladies and children in the fields. I said I'm going to offer them some. I introduced myself and offered them some Pepsi Cola. They were in the fields, black women and black kids.

I said, "I'm Chuck Wilson and I'm out of New York."

"You're all the way from New York and you came down here to say hello to us?"

I said, "Yes, that's what I did. What I'm supposed to do is say hello to you."

I opened up the trunk and I'm popping open Pepsi Colas, iced down. They'd tell about the cotton gin, and whatever the machinery is that plucks and how they are picking up what the machines had missed.

All of a sudden I looked up and coming down this dusty road is a pickup truck. This guy throws the brakes on and jumps out of the truck.

"What in the hell is going on here?"

I said, "I'm Chuck Wilson from the Pepsi-Cola Company."

"You're trespassing, boy. You're on my goddamned land."

I said, "No offense, sir. Can I offer you a bottle of cold Pepsi-Cola."

"No, I had enough belly wash for one day. "

I said, "Excuse me," and I drove off.

Julian C. Nicholas

A bottler might have six counties in his geographical franchise. Each one of those counties has a black high school. They all have elementary schools. Each one of those schools has a Coke machine in it. We've got these black salesmen. Let's send them to the bottler. And the bottler will say, "You're as good to me as fast as you can put a Pepsi machine in every one of them six high schools." I'm just using that as an example. "You're as good to me as you can increase my Pepsi-Cola sales."

Source: U.S. Department of State

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