HELD OVER !

NOW EXTENDED TO SEPTEMBER 7 !

QUEENS MUSEUM OF ART EXHIBIT BASED ON THE BOOK, “THE REAL PEPSI CHALLENGE” BY STEPHANIE CAPPARELL

QMA news release (.doc)

QUEENS, NY (May 5, 2008) – At the height of the cola wars and before the dawn of the civil rights movement, a unique union was formed that forever changed American business: Pepsi-Cola Company became one of the first corporations to hire African-Americans for white-collar positions, creating an all-black special-markets team to sell Pepsi to what was then called the Negro market. The QMA’s latest exhibition, The Real Pepsi Challenge: Breaking the Color Barrier in American Business, showcases this daring marketing initiative and the pioneers who fulfilled the company’s mission.

The exhibition, based on Stephanie Capparell’s gripping account, The Real Pepsi Challenge (Wall Street Journal Books/Free Press), will be on view at the Queens Museum of Art from May 18 to July 27. Through original advertisements from magazines and newspapers, team members’ recorded first-hand accounts, and the artifacts of the mid-20th century workplace, this compelling exhibition conveys the immense struggles and unprecedented successes of men and women who had to soldier on in the face of adversity just to do their daily jobs. Among the archival images on display will be a selection of advertising campaigns that haven’t been seen by the public since they were first published in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Also shown will be photographs of the sales team’s journey across the country in the time of Jim Crow segregation: from a wartime Lionel Hampton concert during which the jazzman gave a shout-out to the Pepsi salesman, Allen L. McKellar, to the 1952 Emancipation Day celebration sponsored by Pepsi-Cola in Joplin, Mo., to an elegant promotional party thrown for black fraternities in Los Angeles by division leader Edward F. Boyd. Four other salesmen survived to tell their stories to the author: Dr. Jean Emmons, Julian C. Nicholas, William R. Simms, and Dr. Charles E. Wilson.

(Contact the author to ask about rights for film and television.)