Media Depictions of the Mammy Archetype
by Dale Ricardo Shields
“Women of Color were often kept from the polls through a variety of tactics. They faced racial and ethnic discrimination and were often discouraged from voting …
These women not only faced discrimination and violence on the basis of their race, but they faced discrimination and violence on the basis of their gender. Despite these challenges, Black women continued to fight for gender and racial equality, and their efforts laid the groundwork for the modern-day feminist movement. Black women portrayed characters that were maids or servants to White families.
As time goes on, the presence of Black women in film and television is certainly increasing, as filmmakers strive to reach diversity quotas. However, the portrayals of Black women have not changed very much. The common thread between many of these roles for women is that they drive the action by affecting other characters, rather than showing off their own thoughts, feelings or development.”
Please Mammy, ca. 1899. Photographer unknown. Courtesy the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
The Mammy archetype is one of the most notable Black stereotypes and caricatures which exist in American culture.
“The Mammy stereotype developed as an offensive racial caricature constructed during slavery and popularized primarily through minstrel shows. Enslaved Black women were highly skilled domestic works, working in the homes of white families and caretakers for their children. A mammy is a U.S. historical stereotype depicting Black women, usually enslaved, who did domestic work, among nursing children. The fictionalized mammy character is often visualized as a dark-skinned woman with a motherly personality.”
History
“The mammy caricature was first seen in the 1830s in Antebellum pro-slavery literature, as a form to oppose the description of slavery given by abolitionists. One of the earliest fictionalized versions of the mammy figure is Aunt Chloe in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, first published in 1852.
Some scholars see the mammy figure as rooted in the history of slavery in the United States. Enslaved African American women were tasked with the duties of domestic workers in white American households. Their duties included preparing meals, cleaning homes, and nursing and rearing their owners’ children. Out of these circumstances arose the image of the mammy”
Or even younger. Harriet Tubman, for instance, was seven when she began caring for a baby and was whipped if the infant cried. Ex-slaves interviewed by the WPA in the 1930s also told of nursing babies as girls themselves, while the older Black women of mammy lore looked after slave children whose mothers labored in the fields. These interviews also cast a harsh light on the supposedly privileged status of “house” slaves.
One former slave recalled a “Mammy” being lashed “till de blood runned out”; another described a rape by the slaveowner’s sons. “I can tell you that a White man laid a nigger gal whenever he wanted,” said an ex-slave from Georgia who “went into the house as a waiting and nurse girl” between the ages of nine and twelve.” – The Atlantic
“Mauma Mollie. She died in the 1850s at the home of the White Florida family who enslaved her. A family member described her as nursing “nearly all of the children in the family” and said that they loved her as a “second mother“
The Mammy, is generally characterized as masculine, overweight, sexually unattractive, large-breasted, non-threatening, and protective of their White families, but aggressive or hostile toward men; has been depicted in best-selling works of literature such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), on radio and television’s The Beulah Show (1934), and countless movies from D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915) to the recent film adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help (2009); and to a lesser known extent within historical Minstrel and Vaudeville shows.
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Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) “Ain’t I A Woman?”
Delivered at the 1851 Women’s Convention, Akron, Ohio
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the
negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix
pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to
have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me
any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and
gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as
much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen
children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus
heard me! And ain’t I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers,
“intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t
hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure
full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t
a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these
women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to
do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.
*~*
Mother to Son
by LANGSTON HUGHES
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
Copyright Credit: Langston Hughes, “Mother to Son” from The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Copyright © 2002 by Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.
Source: The Collected Works of Langston Hughes (University of Missouri Press (BkMk Press), 2002)
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Black Mammies
John Wesley Holloway
If Ah evah git to glory, an’ Ah hope to mek it thoo,
Ah expec’ to hyah a story, an’ Ah hope you’ll hyah it, too—
Hit’ll kiver Maine to Texas, an’ f’om Bosting to Miami—
Ov de highes’ shaf in glory, ’rected to de Negro Mammy.
You will see a lot o’ Washington, an’ Washington again;
An’ good ol’ Fathah Lincoln, tow’rin’ ’bove de rest o’ men;
But dar’ll be a bunch o’ women standin’ hard up by de th’one,
An’ dey’ll all be black an’ homely—’less de Virgin Mary’s one.
Dey will be de talk of angels, dey will be de praise o’ men,
An’ de whi’ folks would go crazy ’thout their Mammy folks again:
If it’s r’ally true dat meekness makes you heir to all de eart’,
Den our blessed, good ol’ Mammies must ’a’ been of noble birt’.
If de greates’ is de servant, den Ah got to say o’ dem,
Dey’ll be standin’ nex’ to Jesus, sub to no one else but Him;
If de crown goes to de fait’ful, an’ de palm de victors wear,
Dey’ll be loaded down wid jewels more dan anybody dere.
She’d de hardes’ road to trabel evah mortal had to pull;
But she knelt down in huh cabin till huh cup o’ joy was full;
Dough ol’ Satan tried to shake huh fom huh knees wid scowl an’ frown,
She jes’ “clumb up Jacob’s ladder,” an’ he nevah drug huh down.
She’d jes’ croon above de babies, she’d jes’ sing when t’ings went wrong,
An’ no matter what de trouble, she would meet it wid a song;
She jes’ prayed huh way to heaben, findin’ comfort in de rod;
She jes’ “stole away to Jesus,” she jes’ sung huh way to God!
She “kep’ lookin’ ovah Jurdan,” kep’ “a-trustin’ in de word,”
Kep’ a-lookin’ fo “de char’et,” kep’ “a-waitin’ fo’ de Lawd,”
If she evah had a quavah of de shadder of a doubt,
It ain’t nevah been discovahed, fo’ she nevah sung it out;
But she trusted in de shadder, an’ she trusted in de shine,
An’ she longed fo’ one possession: “dat heaben to be mine”;
An’ she prayed huh chil’en freedom, but she won huhse’f de bes’,—
Peace on eart’ amids’ huh sorrows, an’ up yonder heavenly res’!
From The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922), edited by James Weldon Johnson. This poem is in the public domain.
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The Black Mammy Poem by James Weldon Johnson
O whitened head entwined in turban gay,
O kind Black face, O crude, but tender hand,
O foster-mother in whose arms there lay
The race whose sons are masters of the land!
It was thine arms that sheltered in their fold,
It was thine eyes that followed through the length
Of infant days these sons. In times of old
It was thy breast that nourished them to strength.
So often hast thou to thy bosom pressed
The golden head, the face and brow of snow;
So often has it ‘gainst thy broad, dark breast
Lain, set off like a quickened cameo.
Thou simple soul, as cuddling down that babe
With thy sweet croon, so plaintive and so wild,
Came ne’er the thought to thee, swift like a stab,
That it some day might crush thine own Black child?
*~*
“White Women Think I’m Lying:” Why I Face Backlash During Black Breastfeeding Week.
My poem goes viral every Black Breastfeeding Week and so does the hate.
by HESS LOVE
UPDATED: Feb. 20, 2024ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: Aug. 31, 2020
I wish I dried up
I wish every drop of my milk slipped passed those pink lips and nourished the ground.
