How Watermelons Got Tangled In Racism

At its core, watermelon represented a pathway to economic freedom for formerly enslaved Africans. While enslaved, they were forced to farm watermelons. But once they were free citizens, watermelons provided a way to reclaim their lives and make money. They grew and harvested them, becoming vendors and selling them on street corners.

And of course, that growing business was seen as a threat to white residents in cities across the South during the Jim Crow era. Smithsonian points out that “many Southern whites reacted to this self-sufficiency by turning the fruit into a symbol of poverty. Watermelon came to symbolise a feast for the ‘unclean, lazy and child-like.’ To shame black watermelon merchants, popular ads and ephemera, including postcards pictured African Americans stealing, fighting over, or sitting in streets eating watermelon.”

Freeman points out how illogical and nonsensical these images were to her. Most of these images, for instance, show massive watermelons cut lengthwise, as if to exaggerate the features of African Americans, drawn in the style of the all-too-familiar Black Sambo caricature. But those who eat watermelon often know that eating it in small triangles is typically the way it is done: To eat it the way it is drawn in these pervasive images would be wasteful and incredibly messy. 

Cultural symbols are more powerful than they seem. It’s why this imaging has endured, decades after the Jim Crow era of racism crumbled and built itself up into something not new, but different. 

It’s why when college cafeterias serve fried chicken and watermelon and someone as famous as Madonna posts a photo of her adopted African daughters eating watermelon, it can be damaging.

The Life Magazine cover is a prime example of how something can appear to be uplifting and affirming, complimentary and positive, but instead contributes to the dehumanisation of an entire group of people. Only when digging into the history, learning about these symbols and unpacking them can they begin to lose their power.