Stereotypes About African Americans Depicted In The Early 1900s

Stereotypes About African Americans That Were Depicted in the Media in the Early 1900s

In the 1800s and early 1900s, there were a myriad of stereotypes that depicted African-Americans in a rather negative light. From the Mammy to the Jezebel, the Uncle Tom to the Sapphire, these pejorative stereotypes, which still persist in today’s society—only in a different form—reflected and reinforced systemic racism.

THE MAMMY

The Mammy stereotype, which was popularized through minstrel shows, depicts an overweight black woman who was devoted to being a faithful worker to her white family. Named after the character in the white supremacist film “The Birth of a Nation” by D.W. Griffith, the Mammy was "representative of the all-black woman, overweight,

This caricature depicted a black man who desired white approval, so he was submissive to the whites while also demeaning and backstabbing black people in the process. In the movie “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” in which Tom was played by a white actor in blackface, he is subservient to whites and … For example, in the 1935 movie “The Littlest Rebel,” the character Uncle Billy … In the 1910 film “The Confederate Spy,”

In the mid 1900s, a few burgeoning actors started to legitimize this stereotype. For instance, the late actor Sidney Poitier played a few Uncle Tom roles during his thespian career. In the 1958 film “The Defiant Ones,” Poitier sacrifices his freedom for white males. Morgan Freeman plays the character Hoke in the 1989 film “Driving Miss Daisy,” …

The Uncle Tom caricature eventually started to shift into a negative connotation that referred to black men who are subservient or deferential to white people, and are thought of as “traitors to the black race. Black conservatives such as Clarence Thomas, Candance Owens, Shelby Steele, and Walter Williams were referred to as “Uncle Toms,” as well as prominent black figures. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. was referred to as an “Uncle Tom'' by more radical activists because of his unwillingness to advocate retaliatory violence. Other prominent figures such as Arthur Ashe, Bayard Rustin, and Jackie Robinson were referred to

For example, actress Hattie McDaniel played a myriad of these caricatures in movies such as Gone with the Wind and Judge Priest–she was sassy, but still deeply cared for the white family she took care of. This caricature then evolved into a black woman who was aggressive, loud, and angry, and its modern name because of the character Sapphire Stevens in the “Amos n’ Andy' ' TV show. Stevens was often seen berating her lazy and indolent husband George “Kingfish” Stevens. This caricature “punished black women who violate the societal norms that encourage them to be passive, servile, non-threatening, and