Racist Postcards
in the United States
1890 – 1960
Karen F. Dimanche Davis
2007
Revised 2011
These racist postcards were:
• Made and used primarily from 1900 through 1965
• Imagined, created, and manufactured by real people
• Sold in the or millions (From 1905-1915, 10 billion
cards were sold in the U.S., with depictions of Blacks
among the most popular styles)
• Sent throughout the US and in foreign countries to
millions of people—many who never met a Black
man or woman
• Reinforced the same demeaning, hateful, terrorizing
ideas and beliefs over four generations
Types of Racist Cards:
* photographic stereotypes *
(1) Mammy
(2) Uncle
(3) Sambo or Coon
(4) Pickaninnies
(5) Animal-like labor
(6) Simple contentment
Some were realistic photographic portraits, but posed
by white perceptions to create a “type”– the mammy
The “good Darky” or Uncle Tom
Pickaninnies
Manual labor
“beasts”
of burden
Pickaninnies happily play in cotton—the fields are fun,
not work.
More fun in the cotton fields—a watermelon break
Poor but contented
“A Watermelon
Feast”
“Taking Life Easy
Down in Sunny
Dixie”
(note 7-8 children)
Types of Racist Cards:
* cartoons and staged photographs *
Staged photographs or cartoons are ideal for conveying
demeaning, dehumanizing, or terrorizing images.
Real human features and events can be exaggerated or
even invented. This makes it easier for the artist to depict
the intended racist ideals or values.
(1) Color jokes
(2) Mammy
(3) Coon, Sambo, Brute
(4) Darkie Preacher
(5)Pickaninnies: Sexualized
(6) Eugenics & Torture jokes
Older Black men, Uncle Remus or Uncle Tom, are beloved.
Note: the contrast between dark skin and white cotton fascinated
whites, as did the similarity of kinked white hair to cotton
Pickaninny—Color Joke
Suntan jokes
In a caricature, Mammy can be coal-black and obese,
with an ugly face, bare feet, and a red kerchief
Mammy can be drawn like an animal. Not only is she coal black
with a red kerchief, coal black, but her posture and figure are
being equated with those of a donkey—an ass. Can there be a
clearer image of white views of Blacks as sub-human?
Mammy is an ever-grinning servant who is washing laundry, and
helping the white man write a message. Note the strange animallike pickaninnies with her.
Mammy: “I’s savin’ honey, deed I am—
I saves my fat can fo’ th’ groc’ry man”
This is a quadruple slur on Black spendthriftiness, ugly women,
unusually large buttocks, and sexual permissiveness.
Mammy at home, however, is mean to her husband and
children. She beats them and neglects them.
Poor Old Joe: weak, skinny man starves while his ugly
Mammy wife grows fat. Whites misunderstand West African
preferences for slender, quick-footed men and ample women
who could successfully bear and raise children.
An ugly, slovenly wife
awaits her ugly, drunken
husband, waiting to beat
him—implicating Blacks
in hating each other
The ugly Black woman is beating up on her own “poor
old Joe”, suggesting ugly Black women dominate and
beat their weak men as if they were children.
“Poor Ole Joe” gets his revenge—whites projecting
hatred of the Black woman onto the Black man
A Mammy & Pickaninnies puzzle asks us to show her all “eleben”
pickaninnies, “no white trash.” With stick in hand, she plans to beat
them when we find them. (Note the eugenics message in 11 children)
A baby mammy in
training—
overpowering the
frightened skinny boy
Another young Mammy-in-the-making accuses her
husband of being lazy. (N-word)
A play on words:
“Coon trees possum”—
naming Black men as
“coons” and implying
their animal nature
Black Man as Gorilla (France)
“You doun want none of my lip hey?” The answer to
this ugly Coon who thinks he’s a civilized gentleman is,
of course, “No, I would NOT want your ugly face.”
Black man as a savage, a cannibal
Coon with Razor:
His eye is on Mammy’s Big Butt. Again, a multiple slur--Black men
are irresponsible, dangerous, sexually lascivious, and Black
women have ugly faces and large buttocks.
Coons with uncontrollable appetites for chicken and
woman-as-chicken
“Discovered”—
these young men
are avoiding work in
the cotton fields,
implying they are
lazy
Happy,
irresponsible
young Coons
gamble away their
lives—on their way
to even more
criminal behavior
A play on words for criminal behavior by young Black men
“Out on bale”—a play
on words—implying
the young black
man’s natural
condition is to be in
jail or “out on bail”
And this child is already in jail
Most “criminal” acts depicted are petty theft—
chickens and watermelons—by children
Coon dreaming of free chicken
Coon—the Black
man as a
chicken thief
Irresponsible fighting among young men (N-word)
(compared with gentility of patriotic whites, 1901)
Coons can, if uncontrolled, revert to their true state—
African primitive savagery
If kept busy at manual labor
and fed with watermelon,
they will be “the happiest
people on earth”
. . . And happily play the banjo
Why watermelons? A symbol of simple contentment
(Note: Coon becomes an edible fruit)
In his proper place as
servant, the Black man is a
happy, smiling, caricature,
not a man
Double stereotype: A Scottish man resents tipping the
grinning, dehumanized Black Coons who serve him
Coon Chicken Inn. Yes, a real restaurant chain—
Portland, Seattle, and Salt Lake City
Whites invented a
“Darky Preacher” to
warn Blacks against
drinking, fighting,
gambling, gossip,
and trying to pass
as white!
Black children
become
Pickaninnies.
Here, they are
chocolate
candies—
morsels to
devour
Little girls are also chickens to be eaten up sexually
Both adults and children:
Sexual, pregnant and ignorant
Black children share
watermelon and an
implied romance
Dark-skinned pickaninnies (a sexualized boy and
girl) happily engulfed in watermelon and cotton—
note they are also be-headed
Pickaninnies with bare butts were a popular theme,
suggesting that children were undressed, like animals,
and sexually available
Pickaninny—bare butt,
raggedy clothes—unsuited to
be a soldier
Black children are
sexualized, with heartshaped bare butts.
Pickaninnies, naked and
sex-crazed
Children are sexualized. They are coal-black with huge red
balloon lips, uncombed hair and ragged clothing. Like his
father, this boy is sex-crazed.
A dark outlook
This supposed
hyper-sexuality
leads Blacks to
have many
children—thus
an implied
eugenics
message in
images of
families with
many children
Six little
pickaninnies
Mother with seven
children and a dog
“Eight little
pickaninnies
kneeling in a row”
The implied eugenic message explains the often subtle
“torture” jokes in which Black men, women, and
children are tortured or killed
These sexualized children with heart-shaped bare butts
are objects of torture by another sex-crazed boy
A bare-butt pickaninny
torture joke
Mammy, Coon and
Pickaninny—all being
tortured
Bees will sting and “eat up” an innocent child.
Mammy—Torture Joke. Here the woman’s breasts are being drawn into a
washing-machine wringer. When white men suffer similar industrial
accidents they are horrified and expect compensation—here, it’s
supposed to be funny.
Torture Joke (advertisement for Korn Kinks)
Pickaninny
Castration Jokes
Displaying fears of Black
male sexuality
Pickaninny—Torture
Jokes
A popular theme is Black
children and men as
alligator bait—animals to
be eaten by animals
True feelings for Blacks
are displayed in these
cards
“Come on Down” Torture Jokes
Pickaninnies
“Alligator Bait”
Torture Joke
Like animals,
the children are
naked and
without adult
supervision
Pickaninnies—Torture Joke as a “Joy Ride”
Pickaninny—Torture Joke
His Last Prayer—Torture Joke
Implying Black men wait for God’s help rather than take
reasonable action
After a while, the
alligator theme is so well
known, it can be simply
shown, to imply the
alligators will devour the
hated mammies
Similar images and ideas are still common today in newspapers,
magazines, television, and other media.
What examples can you give?
Bibliography
Anderson, L.M. From blackface to “genuine negroes”: nineteenth-century
minstrelsy and the icon of the “negro”. Theatre Research International 21(1):1723, Spring 1996.
Baldwin, B. On the verso: postcard messages as a key to popular prejudices.
Journal of Popular Culture 22(3):15-28, Winter 1988.
A brief history of postcards. Shiloh Postcards
http://www.shilohpostcards.com/webdoc2.htm , accessed 03/31/2011
“Coon cards”: racist postcards have become collectors’ items. Journal of Blacks
in Higher Education 25:72-3, Autumn 1999.
Curry, A. Men in blackface. U.S. News & World Report 133(2):24-5, July 8, 2002.
Alan Petrulis. (2010). Post Cards Between the Wars, 1914 – 1945: Racist Humor.
Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City,
http://www.metropostcard.com/history1914-1945.html accessed April 9, 2011.
Pilgrim, David. Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University,
http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/ accessed 03/31/2011