A Note on Language: While the word “Kaffir” is recognized today as a deeply offensive racial slur, it was the name chosen and used by this company’s African American founders in 1920 to signify their industrial ambitions and pride.
In the early 1920s, North Omaha was home to a bold industrial experiment that sought to prove the economic power of the Black community. At the center of this ambition was the Kaffir Chemical Laboratories, a business marketed as a nation-wide business and a “race enterprise” that aimed to make its stockholders independent for life.
A “Race Enterprise”
Incorporated under the laws of Nebraska with an authorized capitalization of $500,000, the Kaffir Chemical Laboratories was a major commercial undertaking. The company was distinctive for being one of the first of its kind to be organized and conducted entirely by “colored people” in the United States.
The leadership was equally trailblazing. The company’s president was Miss Madree Penn, a graduate of Howard University with a distinguished background as a teacher and organizing secretary for the Y.W.C.A. National War Work Council. Joining her on the board were community leaders like Rev. John Albert Williams, who served as treasurer of the company, and Dr. Asa E. Fletcher, a successful physician and chemist who developed many of the company’s original formulas. Another investor in the company was Charles Storz, a brother of the founder of the nearby brewery.
Meet Madree Penn
Madree Penn White (1892-1967) was a powerhouse of intellect and activism in North Omaha. The founder of the Kaffir Chemical Laboratories, she was essential to the so-called “New Negro Renaissance” aka the Harlem Renaissance in the community. Raised in the community, White was a distinguished academic. She matched her industrial entrepreneurship with her passion for media, serving as the associate editor and business manager of The Omaha Monitor. In 1909, she represented the Omaha Literary and Historical Society in an oratory contest before heading to Howard University, where she graduated in 1914. Beyond the laboratory and newspaper, White leveraged her diverse skills as an editor, educator, businesswoman, and lifelong activist to anchor Black culture across the United States. Before assuming the presidency of the Kaffir Chemical Laboratories in the 1920s, she was very influential in North Omaha. Her long career seamlessly blended entrepreneurship with unwavering activism as shown by by her participation in a 1913 suffrage march in Omaha and leading a Delta Sigma Theta contingent in the 1963 March on Washington.
Manufacturing on 16th Street
The company was headquartered in a prominent three-story brick building with a two-story frame annex located at 815–819 North 16th Street, just south of the intersection of 16th and Cuming. A popular corner, the Ford Truck Factory, Badger Auto Body, and several other vital industries were located nearby…