PepsiCo Inc. has announced award-winning filmmakers Stanley Nelson and Jacqueline Olive will co-direct “The Color of Cola,” a new documentary on how the company broke racial barriers in the Jim Crow South by recruiting an all-Black sales team focused on the region’s Black consumers.
The new film, which is now in production, is based on Stephanie Capparell’s 2008 book “The Real Pepsi Challenge: How One Pioneering Company Broke Color Barriers in 1940s American Business.” Nelson”™s latest film, “Attica,” is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film and Olive”™s 2019 “Always in Season” premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Special Jury Prize for Moral Urgency.
Last year, the Purchase-headquartered PepsiCo announced its Racial Equality Journey, which allocated more than $570 million over five years to increase Black and Hispanic managerial and content creation representation within the company and across its network of suppliers and strategic partners.
Photo: A 1940s-era meeting of PepsiCo”™s all-Black sales team, courtesy of PepsiCo Inc.
