For 16 years, Black staff at the General Mills plant in Covington had to walk past a mural depicting Stone Mountain’s Confederate carving, with cereal mascots in the place of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, according to a new federal lawsuit brought against the food giant by eight current and former Black staff at the facility, where Cinnamon Toast Crunch and other products are made.
The mural featuring Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, Chef Wendell and Buzz the Bee as Confederate leaders was commissioned in 2005 at the suggestion of white plant managers known as the “Good Ole Boys,” the lawsuit claims.
The plaintiffs seek to represent a class of hundreds of Black workers employed at the facility in the last four years who experienced race discrimination. They say General Mills has turned a blind eye to “a fraternal organization of male white supremacists operating in management and HR at the Covington location” which has “systematically deprived Black employees the full and equal benefit of employment” in violation of federal and Georgia law.
“Egregious incidents of racism have gone ignored by local and corporate HR for over 20 years,” states the complaint, filed June 2 in the federal trial court in Atlanta.
General Mills said it does not comment on pending litigation. It is fighting a related case brought in April 2023 by a Black technician at the Covington factory who says he was reprimanded for things white counterparts got away with, denied promotions that went to less qualified white applicants and unjustifiably demoted.
In the 2023 case, General Mills has denied any wrongdoing or unlawful conduct. It also denied the existence of the “Good Ole Boys” leadership group at the Covington facility.
When formally questioned in the 2023 case, the then-manager of the plant denied the use of General Mills characters in the mural until confronted with a photograph of it, the more recent lawsuit states. It states the mural was more than 20 feet wide and about 12 feet tall and displayed until 2021.
Credit: court
Credit: court
The plaintiffs also claim Black employees were required at times to wear T-shirts created by a “Good Ole Boys” member featuring a Stone Mountain-shaped rock. One of the designs allegedly depicted Chef Wendell holding a chain connected to the neck of a rabid dog-like creature.
Credit: court
Credit: court
The plaintiffs say race discrimination has been rampant at the Covington factory since its inception in the late 1980s. They claim Black workers are routinely overlooked for roles they are qualified for and exclusively punished.
The factory employed about 400 people in September 2020, when Gov. Brian Kemp announced an expansion that would create another 40 jobs.
A plaintiff employed there in 1992 found a noose on his desk the following year, according to the recent complaint. In 1994, he was told to “go back to Africa.” Those incidents were reported to management but nothing was done, per the lawsuit.
The same plaintiff said he was repeatedly denied promotions in favor of less qualified white workers he then had to train. He alleged that in 2003 he applied for a position requiring a bachelor’s degree and though he was qualified, the job went to a white worker without a degree.
Another plaintiff said a racial slur was written on his employment form in 2003, around the same time someone wrote a different racial slur about him on a restroom wall. He said when “KKK” was written on his lunch box in 2006, General Mills asked him for a handwriting sample.
“As should go without saying, (the employee) did not write ‘KKK’ on his own lunch box,” the lawsuit states.
Covington plant leaders set up Black workers to fail and then reprimanded them, plaintiffs say. They claim Black workers were pressured to falsely approve inspection reports to speed production and to work in certain areas without necessary training.
Underperforming white staffers received the answers to test questions required for advancement and inflated performance reviews, the lawsuits allege.
General Mills is accused of violating the Civil Rights Act and the federal and Georgia anti-racketeering statutes.
