Some Americans are unaware that the ice cream song that attracted the attention of children and adults for generations has a racist origin story. The song, released in March 1916 by the Columbia Graphophone Company, entitled “N—— Love a Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!” was written by Harry C. Browne, a White banjo player and actor who regularly performed the song wearing blackface, his face tinted darker with shoe polish. Minstrel shows, the most popular form of entertainment starting in the 1830s and 40s, regularly disparaged Black people, using the imagery of the watermelon as a symbol of laziness and mindlessness. This portrayal undermined Black Americans’ use of the watermelon as a symbol of resistance during the Reconstruction Era. In the song, Browne referred to watermelon as “colored man’s ice cream.”
The ice cream song began with a shockingly racist line, “You n — — quit throwin’ them bones and come down and get your ice cream.” Originally, “Turkey in a Straw” was a folk song with British and Irish roots, with no racial connotations. Nevertheless, in minstrel shows throughout America, Browne popularized a racist remix, one that fed into some of the most harmful stereotypes of Black people. Actors like Browne used the song and similar melodies as a way of mocking Black people while also profiting from spreading dehumanizing stereotypes. On a hot summer day, ice cream sandwiches, bars, and pops are prized possessions. And yet, the song many children grew up hearing ice cream trucks playing in their communities, despite no longer including Browne’s vocals, carried the racist connotations of the songwriter and his minstrel shows. The song remained unchanged for generations, a lasting reminder of the absurdity of American racism.
Folklore in the black community suggested that, in some areas, white people were so racist during Jim Crow that they would deprive Black people of vanilla ice cream. While there were no laws preventing the sale of certain flavors of ice cream, the vast majority of ice cream parlors were segregated, either declining to sell ice cream to any Black customers altogether, making them come to the back door, or selling them less-than-quality goods. There certainly weren’t any laws that required ice cream parlors to provide Black people access to all flavors. In Maya Angelou’s autobiography, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings,” she shared such a narrative. “People in Stamps used to say the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn’t buy vanilla ice cream. Except on July Fourth. Other days, he had to be satisfied with chocolate.” Audre Lorde, the famed poet, shared a similar story in her autobiography, Nami: A New Spelling of My Name, sharing that “the waitress was white, the counter was white, and the ice cream I never ate in Washington DC that summer I left childhood was white,” suggesting she was deprived of access.
Michael W. Twitty suggested in The Guardian that “what makes the vanilla ice cream story less folk memory and more truth is that the terror and shame of living in the purgatory between the Civil War and civil rights movement was often communicated in ways that reinforced to children what the rules of that life were, and what was in store for them if they broke them.” Teaching Black children, for instance, that vanilla ice cream is something they cannot have could also have been a social cue in some spaces to teach them these rules.
In the South, where lynchings were pervasive, a Black person breaking part of the social contract, either formally or informally, could prove fatal. While there were no laws that forbid a Black boy from whistling at a White woman, it was that very allegation that inspired Carol Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, JW Milam, to kill 14-year-old Emmett Till. Thus, we see that not only formal laws have a bearing on the experiences of Black people during this era. Some scholars, like Maya Angelou, suggested Black people were deprived of vanilla ice cream; however, given the informal nature of some racist policies, it’s uncertain whether this practice was widespread. What is verifiable is that many ice cream parlors refused to serve Black customers or served them in segregated settings.
In 1957, Rev. Douglas Moore led six African-American students into the segregated Royal Ice Cream Parlor in Durham, North Carolina. While this establishment required Black patrons to sit in a colored section, the nonviolent protestors sat in the “whites-only section.” As typical during Jim Crow, the law sided with the White business owners. An all-white jury found the protestors guilty of trespassing and “fined ten dollars each plus court costs.” The Supreme Court refused to hear their case, claiming the ice cream parlor’s segregation policy did not violate their rights. The following year, “the protestors were fined a total of $433.25.” Despite this legal failure, their efforts paved the way for future success, as observed during the Greensboro Sit-Ins three years later.
In American society, racism is more than a topping — it’s a key ingredient, which is why we can’t cover up its impacts with a scoop of fudge or a spoonful of sprinkles. Or even obscure its flavor by including gummy bears, almonds, or pecans. Only by creating a new recipe, in our case, developing a society rooted in shared values, an element left out of the original recipe, can we reduce our country’s legacy of racism to an aftertaste. As it stands, the original lyrics of America’s Ice Cream song expose the absurdity of the country’s racism during Jim Crow and how it found its way into nearly every facet of life. Far too often, Black joy is villanized in American culture, their freedom after enslavement caste as laziness, their joy over the watermelon they harvested reduced to a dehumanizing stereotype, and their love of ice cream portrayed as a primal desire. In reflection, we’re reminded that racism is absurd, but so are efforts to obscure these painful truths.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Allison Gaines' work on Medium.
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