Library of Congress posts Rosa Parks’ ‘Featherlite Pancakes’ recipe

A pancake recipe with ties to the Civil Rights Movement is making the rounds now that the Library of Congress has put it on the internet.

The recipe is generating so much interest because of the woman who wrote it down — Rosa Parks.

She’s known for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, effectively mobilizing a larger protest for civil rights and freedoms back in 1955.

She is one of the founders of the Civil Rights Movement and this recipe gives us a look inside her personal life.

Historians say the pancake recipe helps humanize her.

It was part of a collection of 10,000 personal documents that were gifted to the Library of Congress nearly 10 years ago.

It was the only recipe in all the documents. Her “Featherlite Pancakes” recipe is unusual because it calls for peanut butter and about three times the amount of baking powder used in most pancakes.

It’s written on the back of a bank envelope from Detroit, in Rosa’s own handwriting.

A curator suggested to “The Sporkful Podcast” that the recipe was likely written on the envelope because after her arrest, both Rosa and her husband lost their jobs, received death threats and were forced to leave their home. She says they always struggled financially and had to be frugal, which is why she most likely reused papers, like banking envelopes to jot down notes.

You can on the Library of Congress’ website. There are also postcards from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., journal pages and some photos.