This is the story of how Cracker Barrel went woke.

It isn’t about a bad design firm botching a rebrand, or a struggling restaurant trying to win over Gen Z.

Keep reading to find out what really happened.

It started in the early 1990s, when Cracker Barrel was caught in a scandal for discriminating against gay workers and customers. As a symbol of the South, the chain quickly became a target for the growing progressive establishment and its new institutions.

Chief among them was the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), built to rank corporations on their adherence to progressive ideology — a tool to keep companies in line. The former HRC president later admitted that Cracker Barrel was “under fire” from the organization, saying even that was “an understatement.”

By 2005, Cracker Barrel had a failing grade from HRC. Then came Steve Smotherman, a corporate leader who launched internal LGBTQ reforms, steadily raising the company’s HRC score. He even sat on an HRC advisory council, linking the chain directly to the group’s agenda.

Over the next two decades, Cracker Barrel reshaped itself — changing internal policies, pulling “controversial” items from stores, blocking certain figures from dining events, funding Pride parades, and chasing higher woke scores.

The latest rebrand — removing Americana décor and the white man from its logo to make the chain “more welcoming” — is not a fresh marketing pivot. It’s the culmination of a decades-long effort to bring Cracker Barrel into the good graces of the progressive establishment.

And it’s certainly not what everyday Americans expect from the chain. Instead, it reflects what corporate leaders — fully bought into the “woke” ideology of recent years — want to impose.

You can find our exclusive reporting and scoops on our website. Scoops and exclusive reporting here. upward.news/p/cracker-barr…

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