Watermelon stereotype

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.

[1] The first published caricature of Black people reveling in watermelon is believed to have appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper in 1869.

[2] 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.

It was a flop, as the city's African American community boycotted the exposition, along with many of the performers booked to attend on Colored People's Day.

[7] One poem from the early 1900s (pictured right) reads:[8] George Washington Watermelon Columbus Brown I'se black as any little coon in town At eating melon I can put a pig to shame For Watermelon am my middle name For several decades in the late 19th century through to the mid 20th century, the stereotype was promoted through caricatures in print, film, sculpture and music, and was a common decorative theme on household goods.

[6] The script for Gone with the Wind (1939) contained a scene in which Scarlett O'Hara's slave Prissy, played by Butterfly McQueen, eats watermelon, which the actress refused to perform.

In 2023, the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America began using the Watermelon image to pressure African American Congressman Hakeem Jeffries to call for a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war, which drew criticism because of the connotations with the stereotype.

[25] In a New York Times op-ed published shortly thereafter, "The Pain of the Watermelon Joke", Jacqueline Woodson explained that "in making light of that deep and troubled history" with his joke, Daniel Handler had come from a place of ignorance, but underscored the need for her mission to "give people a sense of this country's brilliant and brutal history, so no one ever thinks they can walk onto a stage one evening and laugh at another's too often painful past".

[29] A couple of days earlier, a video of a boy eating a whole watermelon – rind and all – in the stands of a cricket match had gone viral.

[33] During Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential election rally at Madison Square Garden, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made a joke involving black people carving watermelons for Halloween.