mrs-robinsons-tea-cakes

A Taste of History: Why Every Black Museum Gift Store Should Carry Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes

omari@dips.technology (Omari Bakari) — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 19:00:42 GMT

Connecting Culture, Community, and Commerce-One Bite at a Time

Every Black museum gift store has a unique opportunity to offer more than just memorabilia—it can offer a taste of history. That’s exactly what Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes provide. These traditional Southern cookies are more than a sweet treat; they’re a cultural artifact, a story baked into every batch, and a bridge between generations. When visitors step into a Black museum, they come to learn, reflect, and reconnect with their heritage. When they step into the gift store, they should be able to take a piece of that heritage home. Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes turn that experience into something tangible, memorable, and delicious.

The concept of “a taste of history in every bite” isn’t just a catchy phrase—it’s a philosophy. Tea cakes were once a staple in Black households across the South, especially during times when resources were scarce but traditions were rich. Grandmothers passed down their recipes along with their stories. The tea cake became a symbol of love, survival, and cultural memory. Mrs. Robinson, the official Juneteenth Tea Cake Commissioner for the National Juneteenth Observation Foundation, has revived this tradition, not just to honor her heritage, but to ensure that the legacy of Black culinary excellence continues to be celebrated and shared. Each cookie carries with it the story of Black perseverance, celebration, and community.

For museum gift stores, Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes also represent a consistent, proven revenue generator. In the world of retail, products that combine cultural relevance, emotional connection, and universal appeal are rare—but tea cakes check every box. They’re affordable, consumable (meaning people come back for more), and they spark curiosity. Visitors are far more likely to purchase something that feels both meaningful and delicious, and museum-goers love supporting products tied directly to Black history and legacy. Tea cakes are also beautifully packaged, making them ideal for gifts, souvenirs, or simply a personal indulgence that aligns with the museum’s mission.

Having a signature item in a gift store that resonates with your audience and supports your institution’s values is critical. Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes do exactly that. They offer more than just profit—they create a deeper connection between the visitor and the museum’s purpose. They keep the memory of Black cultural traditions alive while offering a modern fundraising solution. In fact, many institutions are using tea cake sales to support special events, youth programs, and Juneteenth celebrations, proving the product’s versatility and long-term value.

Every bite of Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes is a reminder of who we are and where we come from. Carrying them in your museum gift store ensures that your visitors don’t just leave with something they learned—but something they can taste, remember, and share. It’s time to add a product that makes history personal, profitable, and powerful. It’s time for every Black museum gift store to carry Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes.

#BlackMuseums #JuneteenthEveryday #TasteOfHistory #MrsRobinsonsTeaCakes #BlackCulinaryHeritage #SupportBlackBusiness #EdibleHistory #FundraiseWithFlavor #CulturalPreservation #TeaCakesAndTradition

From Tea Cakes to The Marathon: The Legacy of Black Entrepreneurship

omari@dips.technology (Omari Bakari) — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 03:11:48 GMT

How Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes and Nipsey Hussle’s Vision Inspire Generations

On the side of U.S. Bank at Slauson and Crenshaw, a powerful mural tells a deeper story than what first meets the eye. It features Etha Robinson, the founder of Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes, alongside Nipsey Hussle, the late hip-hop artist and entrepreneur. At first glance, the pairing might seem unexpected—an elder preserving a historic Black culinary tradition alongside a modern-day rap icon known for his investments in real estate, technology, and community development. But a closer look reveals a shared mission: economic empowerment, generational wealth, and a deep commitment to keeping Black history alive.

Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes and Nipsey Hussle’s “The Marathon” philosophy are part of the same legacy—Black entrepreneurship as a tool for self-determination. Hussle often spoke about ownership, financial literacy, and creating opportunities within the Black community. His vision wasn’t just about personal success; it was about uplifting others and ensuring that the wealth generated in Black neighborhoods stayed in Black hands. That same philosophy is deeply embedded in Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes, which preserves the history of tea cakes as a symbol of African American resilience, freedom, and economic independence.

Tea cakes, the official cookie of Juneteenth, were a staple in Black households, a culinary tradition passed down for generations. They are a direct link to the past, much like Nipsey’s investment in his own community was a vision for the future. Through her business, Etha Robinson is not only keeping this history alive but also using it as a vehicle for economic empowerment—offering fundraising opportunities for HBCUs, Black churches, and cultural institutions. This mirrors what Nipsey did by purchasing businesses along Slauson and reinvesting in the same streets that raised him.

The mural at U.S. Bank is more than just an artistic tribute; it is a symbol of intergenerational entrepreneurship. It connects past and present, reminding young people that their history is filled with stories of Black self-reliance, creativity, and resilience. Nipsey’s message to “own your block” aligns with Mrs. Robinson’s mission to “own your history.” Both remind today’s youth that building wealth isn’t just about money—it’s about legacy.

For young entrepreneurs, the lessons are clear: success is a marathon, not a sprint. Whether through music, business, or culinary traditions, Black ownership matters. The same entrepreneurial spirit that fueled Black Wall Street in Tulsa, the self-sustaining communities of the Reconstruction Era, and the civil rights-era businesses that thrived despite segregation, is the same spirit that Mrs. Robinson and Nipsey embodied in their respective lanes.

As young people walk past that mural, they are invited to see themselves in it. Whether they aspire to be artists, business owners, or cultural historians, the message is the same—know your history, invest in your future, and keep the marathon going. The journey of Black economic empowerment didn’t start with Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes, and it won’t end with Nipsey Hussle. But together, their legacies remind us that the race for freedom, ownership, and cultural preservation is one we must continue, one step—and one tea cake—at a time.

A Legacy in Every Bite

omari@dips.technology (Omari Bakari) — Thu, 29 May 2025 16:42:31 GMT

Etha Robinson’s Mission to Elevate Black Food, Agriculture, and Enterprise

As the scent of vanilla-sweetened tea cakes begins to drift across Juneteenth celebrations nationwide, one name rises with every batch baked: Etha Robinson. A culinary historian, businesswoman, and cultural steward, Mrs. Robinson has made it her life’s work to revive the legacy of African American foodways and transform them into a modern-day engine for economic empowerment.

On June 18, 2025, the community will gather at the U.S. Bank Community Center on Crenshaw & Slauson to honor Mrs. Robinson’s visionary work during the “Celebration of Legacy” event. Her likeness, painted alongside the late Nipsey Hussle on the mural gracing the side of U.S. Bank, tells a powerful story of generational entrepreneurship and grassroots leadership.

Etha Robinson’s journey begins not only with her renowned Tea Cakes, but with a deep commitment to honoring the culinary roots of Black America. Named the Tea Cake Commissioner by the late Dr. Ronald V. Myers of the National Juneteenth Observation Foundation, Robinson was entrusted with preserving the tea cake as a cultural artifact. Once a humble Southern cookie served after church or during family gatherings, it now serves as the official cookie of Juneteenth, symbolizing freedom, heritage, and a taste of resilience.

But for Mrs. Robinson, the tea cake is just the beginning. Her broader mission is to bring attention and resources to the Black food and agriculture sector—a cultural and economic asset that remains grossly underutilized. “We have land, we have talent, we have tradition,” she often says. “What we need is structure, investment, and a united front.”

That vision gave birth to the African American Food Association, which Mrs. Robinson founded to serve as a nexus for Black farmers, chefs, bakers, and entrepreneurs. The Association aimed to reclaim the narrative of Black culinary excellence—often co-opted or erased in mainstream culture—and to spark a movement that supports everything from farm-to-table programs and youth agricultural training, to co-ops and value-added product development.

This year, Mrs. Robinson’s tea cakes are doing more than offering sweetness; they’re fueling a nationwide fundraising effort for the Miss Juneteenth Pageant and Scholarship Fund. Through a strategic partnership with the National Juneteenth Observation Foundation, the tea cake campaign empowers churches, HBCU organizations, and cultural institutions like Black Museums to raise funds, while also celebrating and sustaining a meaningful tradition.

What sets Robinson apart is her unwavering belief that Black food is not just nourishment—it’s capital, it’s history, and it’s a pathway forward. In an era where cultural preservation and economic justice must go hand in hand, her work sits at the intersection of both.

As we prepare to honor her at the Celebration of Legacy event, we are reminded that legacies aren’t just left—they’re built. With flour, memory, and entrepreneurial grit, Etha Robinson continues to lay the foundation for a movement that tastes like home and smells like revolution.

Reviving the tea cake of Juneteenth parties past

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 06:30:30 GMT

TEA CAKE COOKIES ARE AN OLD TRADITION OF EMANCIPATION DAY THAT SOME ARE TRYING TO REVIVE. PHOTOGRAPH BY JOEL SALCIDO, COURTESY ELBERT MACKEY

Like all holidays worth celebrating, the African-American emancipation day known as Juneteenth centers on food.

Juneteenth , which takes place each year on June 19th, celebrates the day in 1865 that the slaves of Texas learned they were free. Though President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, the news didn’t take hold in Texas until Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston to enforce it two years later.

This year, Juneteenth celebrations will take place across the country, where there’s a growing a push to have Congress declare Juneteenth a national day of observance. ( Learn about the nationwide movement to observe Juneteenth as a celebration of hope .)

But some Juneteenth cooks harbor a more modest goal: restoring tea cake to the holiday table.

“It was one of the basic pastries the slaves used,” says Etha Robinson, a 73-year-old retired Los Angeles science teacher and chairperson of the National Juneteenth Tea Cake Commission . “It was a simple cookie. The recipe was passed on by mouth.”

Red foods—watermelon, red velvet cake, and the cream-ish flavored soda, Big Red—have famously been a traditional part of the meal. According to the Rev. Dr. Ronald Myers, head of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation , this tradition can be traced to the first celebration held at the Texas governor’s mansion. African-American foodways scholar Frederick Douglass Opie says it may come from the bright red hibiscus iced tea often drunk at slave celebrations. Still others say the red represents the blood spilled to achieve freedom.

Blonde and fragile, the tea cake is the opposite of a red food. It has sugar, but it is not a sugar cookie. It often has nutmeg or citrus, but it is not a snickerdoodle.

“It was almost like eating a cake-like cookie,” recalls 66-year-old Austin, Texas resident Elbert Mackey, who executed a decade-long quest called “ The Tea Cake Project ” to recreate his Aunt Maggie’s recipe, which he shares with The Plate below. “If you would taste one, you would know. It was just something, you know, ‘wow.’ It had a lot of ‘wow’ to it.”

Tea cake is an integral part of African-American food culture. Made from cupboard ingredients —lard or butter, sugar or molasses, flour—the tea cake likely represents the effort of enslaved Africans to reproduce the fluffy confections they were asked to create for their European masters.

Tea cake has kept generations of children quiet in church, old timers say, or happy while working. Reliable, gentle, familiar, Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods may be the most lovable character in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God .

Advocates say featuring tea cake at Juneteenth is one way to maintain their place in the culture.

“People are just coming back into learning how to make a tea cake and putting it into the menu for Juneteenth, but we’ve always had it as part of our celebration,” says Bernadette Phifer, curator of Austin’s George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center . The museum’s core permanent exhibit focuses on Juneteenth. “The elders would talk about tea cakes,” Phifer says, “that when they were little girls they used to get tea cakes for Juneteenth and it was special.”

It’s that older generation that largely has kept tea cake alive. In San Antonio, Texas, 81-year-old Gloria Price Bryant spreads the gospel of tea cake by making dozens and dozens for funerals and bereavement dinners at her church. Bryant believes the pastry has fallen out of favor because it’s “a pain in the butt to make.” You have to get a feel for it.

“You can’t bake tea cakes from a recipe. You have to watch someone do it,” says Bryant, who made several 300-mile trips home to learn at her mother’s hand. “You have to get that dough just right. It’s almost like pie dough.”

The tea cake commission’s Robinson hopes not only to return the sweet to every Juneteenth table, but to spread its fame to the population at large. She waits for the day, she says, when tea cake is a symbol of African-American culture the way bagels represent Jewish heritage and tortillas represent Latino heritage. She would also like to see tea cake become as economically successful as these foods.

“The tortilla is a multi-billion dollar industry,” says Robinson, who in the 1990s collaborated with the National Council of Negro Women on a commercial product called “Mrs. Bethune’s Tea Cakes.” “I’d like to see some jobs created behind the tea cake.”

Aunt Maggie’s Old-Fashioned Tea Cakes

Contributed by Elbert Mackey, Author of The Tea Cake Round-Up .

Makes 1 Dozen

½ cup margarine, softened

½ cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon evaporated milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

Beat margarine at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add the sugars, beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Add vanilla extract and milk, beating until blended.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt; gradually add flour mixture to shortening mixture, beating at low speed until blended after each addition.

Wrap dough in plastic wrap, and chill for 1 hour.

Roll dough to ¼-inch thickness on floured surface. Cut out cookies with a 2 ½-inch round cutter and place 1-inch apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

Bake at 325◦ for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are brown; let stand on baking sheet 5 minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool.

Enjoy!

Food To Celebrate Freedom: Tea Cakes For Juneteenth!

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 06:30:29 GMT

Tea Cakes the Official Cookie of Juneteenth

Think of Etha Robinson as the Johnny Appleseed of pastry. Her mission, rather than planting apple trees, is to plant the idea of reviving the tea cake, a little cookie that has a lot of historical significance packed into it.

"There's an old saying," Robinson offers as she unpacks a china plate from the bag she's brought to our interview. "If you don't progress, you'll regress." She places a batch of golden cookies on the plate. "So my thing is, is we can revitalize the tea cake, and allow our young people to know about the heritage that their ancestors provided for them, then it's our responsibility to build upon what we were given."

And what better time to do that than on Juneteenth? It's the holiday celebrated in black communities around the country (and in recent years, around the globe) that marks the date — June 19, 1865 — when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas finally got word that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed. The government had sent Army couriers from Washington to all slave-holding states to read the Proclamation aloud to all, but Texas was a long way away. By the time Major General Gordon Granger arrived at the Port of Galveston to spread the news of emancipation, two and a half years had passed. The occasion was commemorated with church services, communal picnics and parades--a tradition that continues to this day in many places.

The humble tea cake was often part of the celebration. It was, Etha Robinson says, a rustic approximation of the delicate pastries consumed in front parlors when white women entertained visitors. "Supposedly, tea cakes were made about 200 years ago, in response to the European tea cake, which was actually a cupcake," Robinson explains. Kitchens in the big houses had luxuries like sugar and butter. "At the time of slavery, our folks didn't have refined sugar for the most part. The used molasses, or things of that nature. They didn't often have butter, so they used lard. And eggs, sometimes. And baking powder. Maybe a little nutmeg, if they had any. That was pretty much it."

"Supposedly, tea cakes were made about 200 years ago. Slaves used the ingredients they had: molasses instead of sugar, lard instead of butter," says Etha Robinson.

Karen Grigsby Bates

"So basically," she continues, "it was a sugar cookie recipe, with spices. And if you had it, vanilla. A lot of things we take for granted now were considered luxuries at the time."

But the tea cake was more than a cookie. It's many Southerners' equivalent of author Marcel Proust's madeleine: a small cookie on the surface of things, but laden with emotional resonance. "We like to say it's more than a cookie," she says, "it's an experience." And she wants tea cakes to be as closely associated with black American culture as tortillas are with Latino culture and bagels with Jewish heritage.

Tea cakes aren't much to look at. If they're hand made, they're often not perfectly shaped (well, mine weren't!). But like the Italian hazelnut cookie called Brutti ma Buoni ("ugly but good"), the heavenly part is inside. As Robinson lifts the lid of a commemorative tin containing freshly baked tea cakes, the seductive scent of butter, vanilla and almond waft up. Biting into one of Robinson's tea cakes, I discover they're tender, not crisp, and a perfect synthesis of their ingredients. I could eat these forever.

"I had tea cakes growing up," Etha Robinson smiles. "we were poor, but we were not poor in thinking." Growing up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, Robinson says her mother and grandmother made tea cakes regularly. They'd be on hand in the kitchen for little hands to snatch en route to the back yard. "They had them in old lard cans or glass jars," she says.

And because they were hand-friendly (unlike banana pudding or a fruit cobbler), tea cakes often traveled. "We didn't have regular lunch boxes, so you packed some tea cakes, some fried chicken — if you were lucky — and some light bread," she say. "So that would be our snack when we were traveling on the Greyhound bus!" No reason they can't be brought aboard today's planes. Especially when many people think it feels like riding the bus.

We like to say it's more than a cookie; it's an experience."

Etha Robinson speaking about tea cakes

Robinson says she often brings tea cakes with her when she lectures high school students (she's a retired biology teacher) and she's teaching them about their own heritage. "If they look back in their family history, somebody made tea cakes. Big Mama, Aunt Corine, somebody. So it's not so much about the cookie itself, it's about making a connection." And it's reviving a piece of Afro-culinary history that has long lain dormant. "During the Great Migration, we lost a lot of the things we did in the South," Robinson observes.

This particular tradition is easy to revive. "I would suggest you Google 'tea cakes,'" Robinson says, "there are a variety of tea cake recipes on the internet." She pauses. "Of course, I'm not going to divulge my secret recipe!" Robinson hopes to market that at some point in African-American museum gift shops, as she once did in Los Angeles. In the meanwhile, she's compiling a Tea Cake anthology; she has been collecting vintage tea cake recipes and the stories behind them in anticipation of publishing a book sometime in the next couple of years.

Till then, there's the interwebs. I found a simple tea cake recipe from Jocelyn Delk Adams. Her Grandbaby Cakes blog begat a cook book last year of the same name. Adams' Southern Tea Cakes Recipe yielded a lusciously tender cookie. (I substituted a teaspoon of almond extract for one of the two vanilla extracts the recipe called for, and added a bit of nutmeg. Worked great.)

So to celebrate Juneteenth, make some tea cakes, and call or visit Big Mama or Aunt Corine and them. And rejoice in your family ties.

Tea Cakes, With Black History Origins, Offer Connection to Future

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 06:30:28 GMT

Please don’t offer Etha Robinson a chocolate chip cookie. Or an Oreo. Or a gingersnap.

Not even with a cold glass of milk.

Robinson, a baker who teaches biology at Dorsey High School, is committed to a cookie of a different sort, one with a past that is dear to her heart--and a bountiful future.

“We grew up on tea cakes,” said Robinson, who was born in Yazoo City, Miss., and now lives in Los Angeles. “They were a gift of love. If something has served you well, you never abandon it.”

What you do, Robinson said, is build on it.

The owner of Mrs. Bethune’s Tea Cakes, Robinson sells decorative tins filled with miniature versions of the cookies that are believed to have their beginnings in slavery. In a venture with the National Council of Negro Women, the tea cakes are offered as a fund-raising tool for churches and schools nationwide--much like Girl Scout cookies or candy is sold.

Even as Robinson promotes the product, at the heart of her pitch is history.

On special days, she takes tea cakes to her students and explains their beginnings. But to a generation of older African Americans with Southern roots--and to some Southern whites as well--no explanation is needed.

“There’s lots of tea cake memories” among people who haven’t had the cookie since leaving Mississippi, Louisiana or Georgia, she said.

Culinary historians say the cookie may have been slaves’ version of the English tea cake. With very little provisions, those enslaved Africans took what was available and made their own version.

Tea cakes became a treasure--comfort food that became a special treat during the holidays.

On the back of the Mrs. Bethune’s Tea Cakes tin, Maya Angelou shares her tea cake memory: “When I was a lonely, scared and scarred eight year old, Mrs. Bertha Flowers, a lean, Black teacher invited me to her house and made tea cakes. The aroma of the freshly baked cookies merged with the rich sound of her voice as she read to me.”

For Robinson, lessons abound in this history, in the ability to take what one has--even if it is very little--and turn it into something treasured and valued, something remembered fondly.

But the problem, Robinson said, is that tea cakes are an all-too-distant memory for many who grew up eating them.

“With families migrating to the North, many traditions and foods of the South were left behind,” she said. “We put the tea cake on the back burner.”

The challenge now, Robinson said, is not to discard this past because of its connection to slavery, but to “take it to the next level.” Robinson is convinced that tea cakes can become as popular as bagels or tortillas--ethnic foods everyone can enjoy. And she pushes the idea with a passion.

“I used to think she was crazy,” said Robinson’s sister Helen. “But it really is time for the tea cakes. This is a way to start teaching kids history.”

And the cookies taste good.

After years of selling them as Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes, Robinson attracted support from a group of investors in 1996 and began packaging the cookies in tins that bear the image of Mary McLeod Bethune. She then entered an agreement with the National Council of Negro Women, and dubbed the cookies Mrs. Bethune’s Tea Cakes.

The marriage of Bethune’s image and the cookie seemed natural, she said.

Bethune, a daughter of slaves who went on to become an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, founded Bethune Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Fla., in 1904, with “five girls, faith in God and $1.50,” the tin reads.

“Mrs. Bethune believed in helping people,” Robinson said. “She also believed in people helping themselves.”

Dwayne Sims, who heads a nonprofit organization in the Washington, D.C., area, used the cookies to teach a group of girls about Bethune and the tea cakes and how to manage money.

“They’ll start learning these entrepreneurial skills,” Sims said.

Sims has also served the cakes in a series of “Tea Times,” which serve as fund-raisers for women’s shelters.

“They love them,” he said. “It reminds them of what their grandmothers used to make,” he said.

At the African Marketplace Boutique in the Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw Plaza shopping center, sales manager Ursaline Bryant said response to the tea cakes “has been wonderful. There’s a mix of people, those who already know about tea cakes and then there’s a lot of people that we’re introducing them to.”

The tea cakes are also available at the shopping center’s Robinsons-May store and at a Hallmark shop in the Ladera Shopping Center.

Robinson learned to make tea cakes the way many people did, by listening and watching, she said. Recipes were usually not written down.

For her the kitchen was like a laboratory. But Robinson was not content to master the old Southern standbys: collard greens and cornbread, okra and corn. She had to experiment.

“I tell people all the time, that’s why I don’t cook today because Etha was always in there messing up stuff,” her sister said laughing.

But those days in Yazoo City taught Robinson lasting lessons about food and self-sufficiency. The lessons were impressed upon her each time she watched her mother make preserves or swap collard greens for a neighbor’s beans.

“We used to can all summer,” she said. “We picked berries, peaches, and we made fresh jam. That’s power, when you’re able to provide and do for yourselves.

“We didn’t take those abilities and turn them into laundries, canneries and sewing factories. We left that behind and looked for jobs.”

Today Robinson has a basement pantry filled with jars of jam that she preserved herself. They are gifts that she hands out to people who have helped in her tea cake venture.

Over the years, the business has required a huge investment of time and money, but her philosophy is rooted in the lives of those historical figures she admires, such as Bethune and abolitionist Sojourner Truth.

“Dreams always cost you,” Robinson said. “If you believe in them you have to make the sacrifice.”