Watermelon stereotype facts for kids

A 1909 postcard, with the caption "I'se so happy!"

The watermelon stereotype is an anti-black racist trope originating in the Southern United States. It first arose as a backlash against African-American emancipation and economic sufficiency in the late 1860s.

After the American Civil War, in several areas of the south, former-slaves grew watermelon on their own land as a cash-crop to sell. Thus, for African-Americans, watermelons were a symbol of liberation and self-reliance, while for many in the majority white culture they embodied a loss, and threatened loss, of dominance. Southern-white resentment against African Americans led to a politically potent cultural caricature, using the watermelon to disparage African Americans as sloppy, childish, lazy, and publicly embarrassing.

History

The first known image associating black people with watermelons.

The first published caricature of Black people reveling in watermelon is believed to have appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper in 1869. The stereotype emerged shortly after enslaved people were emancipated after the Civil War. Defenders of slavery used it to portray African Americans as a simple-minded people who were happy when provided with watermelon and a little rest. The slaves' enjoyment of watermelon was also seen by the Southern people as a sign of their own supposed benevolence. The stereotype was perpetuated in minstrel shows often depicting African Americans as ignorant and lazy, given to song and dance and inordinately fond of watermelon.

For several decades in the late nineteenth century through to the mid-twentieth century, the stereotype was promoted through caricatures in print, film, sculpture and music, and was a common decorative theme on household goods. During the 2008 Obama presidential campaign and the presidency of Barack Obama, watermelon imagery was used by his detractors.

Gallery

• 

  Lithograph of a black boy holding a watermelon, circa 1850–1900

• 

  Lithograph of black people dancing around a pile of watermelons, circa 1900

• 

  Postcard ("Coon card") from the 1900s

• 

  "Coon card" from 1904

• 

  "Coon card" from 1910

• 

  "Coon card" from 1911, with the title "You can plainly see how miserable I am"

• 

  "Whar De Watermelon Grow", sheet music of an 1898 minstrel song

• 

  "The Coon's Trade-mark: A Watermelon, Razor, Chicken and Coon", sheet music of an 1898 minstrel song. The razor was used for fighting, while fried chicken is also used in stereotypes of African-Americans.

• 

  A character from the 1941 cartoon Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat enjoying a watermelon.

• 

  I Know'd It Was Ripe, c. 1888 by Thomas Hovenden Brooklyn Museum

• 
• 
• 

  Valentine's Day card, c. 1940

See also

In Spanish: Estereotipo de la sandía para niños

• Stereotypes of African Americans
• Fried chicken stereotype
• Coon Chicken Inn
• Coon card