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It’s watermelon season (May – September) and what better way to celebrate than to learn a little about the history of summer’s favorite fruit. Infamous author Mark Twain said of watermelon, “…when one has tasted it, he knows what angels eat.”
Watermelons have been around for 5,000 years. But centuries of selective breeding have produced the sweet fruit that we know today. Believe it or not, China is the world’s leading producer of watermelons, with the United States ranking seventh, tied with Senegal in West Africa.
Origin of Watermelon
It’s believed that watermelon originated in Northeast Africa around the Kalahari Desert and Sudan. Archeologists even found watermelons depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphics and watermelon seeds were placed in Egyptian tombs so they’d have food for the afterlife. The Yoruba people in West Africa even used watermelons in their spiritual worship.
Watermelons were used as a source of food and water, especially on long journeys where the fruit was used like an ancient canteen. Enslaved Africans were said to have hidden watermelon seeds in their hair for the Middle Passage, so they’d have a familiar food in the new world.
Africans and Spanish colonists are credited with distributing watermelon seeds throughout the eastern part of North America, the Caribbean, and Brazil – a country that has the largest number of African descendants outside of Africa.
During slavery in the United States, Black people charged with working the fields were the ones who had to know how to plant and harvest watermelons. In fact, many enslaved Africans were chosen based on their skills, including farming. During Reconstruction, newly freed slaves became economically independent by selling watermelons and became the largest growers of watermelons among free people.
The Stereotype of Blacks and Watermelon
Sadly, whenever freed Blacks became economically independent, it became a threat to White people. White farmers were so jealous of the success of Black watermelon businesses that they burned many of them down and started ad campaigns to change the narrative about watermelon. The changed narrative, that exists to this day, made it a fruit that only poor Black people ate and for decades has depicted harmful stereotypes about Blacks by portraying them with huge red lips and bugged-out eyes eating watermelon. The result was not only a large decrease in watermelon sales to White customers but even to Black customers.
Today, more than a century later, the stereotype still has an effect. “It let me see how the effects of the mental warfare [from racist Whites] has impacted Black people’s relationship to food, because other cultures all around the world eat watermelon, and they eat it unapologetically,” says James Shields, artist and creator of The Watermelon Couch project. “Yet, there are still African Americans who refuse to eat watermelon because of the stereotype,” he laments.
“I read Shana Klein’s book, ‘The Fruits of Empire: Art, Food, and the Politics of Race in the Age of American Expansion,’” he continues. “The book talks about how America perfected their system of going into other countries and destroying their economies and doing it through agriculture. They started with the Native Americans and then with newly freed African Americans, because we were extremely successful with growing and selling chickens and watermelons, with both being very accessible and affordable to farm.”
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Black Watermelon Farmers
Shields is a Howard University graduate and Oakland, California-based artist of “soft sculpture,” which is cushion design and similar to upholstery. He’s a popular social media content creator known for creating a watermelon couch for a 2022 Juneteenth exhibit, where watermelon represents freedom and self-sufficiency.
He eventually came up with the genius idea to take the couch to Black farmers, historians, and community activists across the country to discuss the narratives about watermelon, Blacks in agriculture, Black identity and Black prosperity.
The first city he visited, in a pickup truck loaned by his uncle, was Galveston, Texas, during Juneteenth, where the celebration originated. Since then, he’s interviewed Black watermelon farmers across the South and up and down the East Coast.
“My goal is to retrace the Great Migration routes, so this summer I’ll focus on the Midwest,” he notes, before adding, “The trip is such an adventure and the couch is the passport that allows me to have these connected conversations with everyday people who may not normally get a listening audience.”
The former teacher got his contacts through friends and the Black Farmer’s Index. “I believe the word farmer is just a label because these people are geniuses,” Shields exclaims. “These farmers have to be engineers, doctors, ministers, artists and problem solvers.”
The artist says farmers are some of the smartest people he’s ever met. “And when you think about the stereotypes about Blacks and watermelon and then all the knowledge Black farmers have to have in order to grow them, it just busts the stereotype,” he emphasizes.
A farmer Shields spoke to, who spits in the face of racism and stereotypes, was selling water on the side of the road in Utica, Mississippi. “He was in his 70s and was with his grandson and he was selling next to a tombstone,” notes Shields.
“So I asked him if it was a special memorial and he looked at me and sucked his teeth and said, ‘Naw, that guy’s burning in hell. This is a Klansman’s tombstone.'” Shields said he loved the farmer’s strong sense of self and determination.
“I thought, here we are in the deep woods of Mississippi and this old Black man who’s lived through all these eras of extreme discrimination is selling watermelon on a Klansman’s tombstone. That was like the most righteous political and cultural statement,” Shields laughs.
Other Black watermelon farmers Shields interviewed include Sam Cobb, who is a day farmer in Southern California, on the border of Arizona and is one of the most successful day farmers in America.
Then there’s Ben Burkette, who Shields says is like an elder statesman in Mississippi. “He talked about seeded and seedless watermelon and is one of the elders who went viral with millions of views,” notes Shields.
Shields also learned that watermelons are fairly easy to grow. “I learned that with watermelon, you put the seed in the ground and it does its thing. The hotter it is the more sugar it produces, and the sweeter it gets the larger it gets,” explains Shields.
“I’ve even been told stories about people who just spit seeds out in the backyard and then the next year, watermelons started to grow,” he laughs.
Farmer Paul Gaskin owns the 66-acre family farm, Blue Ridge Ranch in Guinda, California, near Sacramento. He’s been farming for 18 years and started out growing the Black Tiger watermelon.
“My son and I planted a few hundred seeds and got about a thousand watermelons from them,” Gaskin exclaims. He was selling them for five to 10 dollars each, when a customer told him about an article that said Black Tiger watermelons sold for as much as $6,100 each in Japan.
“So I increased the cost of mine, but only to $15 a piece,” he laughs. “They always sold out and now I can’t find the seeds for them anymore,” he laments.
Today, Gaskin grows honeydew melons and seeded watermelons called 800 F1. “My customers say they are as sweet as cotton candy and the best watermelon they ever had,” he says with pride.
The former fire captain said he went back to farming after he retired. “I originally grew up in Louisiana where my mother’s father was a farmer. I learned from him and took a liking to it,” he explains. But he discloses, “If I didn’t have my retirement money from firefighting, I couldn’t make it as a farmer.”
He sells his watermelons mostly at the Farms to Grow, Inc. in Oakland, California, which is for Black farmers. “I also sell at Urban Tilth in Richmond, California, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Boxes, food banks, schools, grocery stores and chefs,” adds Gaskin.
During his Watermelon Couch conversations, Shields also speaks to urban farmers. Farmer Gaskin partners with urban farmer Effie Gant, who is a certified grower for the USDA. She works at Meadowview Urban Farm and Yisrael Family Urban Farm in Sacramento. Along with watermelons, she grows honeydew melons, collard greens and more.
“A lot of us don’t drink enough water and watermelon can help with that,” Gant advises. “Urban farming is a great way to grow your own watermelons without having to have your own farm.”
Types of Watermelons
Shields says along the Texas/Louisiana border, Sugar Baby watermelons are extremely popular. “The Jubilee is also a popular watermelon and it was so interesting to go to museums in Utica, Mississippi, and Nashville, Tennessee, to learn about how the Jubilee watermelon was connected to the Jubilee Singers,” he smiles.
The artist notes that the Watermelon Couch conversations that have gone viral have all been with elders and that they could care less about the stereotypes about Blacks and watermelons. “Though one farmer did say his wife has allowed the stereotypes to keep her from eating watermelon,” he laments. But one Black farmer who has reclaimed and re-championed the watermelon is Black foodways historian Deb Freeman.
“I’m not gonna lie, I was one of those people who didn’t eat watermelon in public because of the stereotypes,” Freeman laughs. “But this journey taught me not to be embarrassed, but rather to be proud that people who looked like me, and perhaps even in my own lineage, grew foods like watermelon to support their families.”
That journey started with Freeman and her partner, Josh “Fitz” Fitzwater wanting to buy the sweetest watermelon they could find. “We started by driving from Richmond to South Carolina to try the Bradford watermelon,” she explains. “It was really good and we started thinking that if this is a watermelon that we had not heard of or tasted before, then what else is out there?”
Their journey lasted almost two years, with them driving up and down the East Coast to find different types of heirloom watermelons, from the Ali Baba to the Red-N-Sweet down in Louisiana. “We were driven by taste and trying to identify these historical tastes that have almost been lost to near extinction,” states Freeman, who is the creator and host of the podcast, “Setting the Table” and Emmy Award winner for her documentary, “Finding Edna Lewis.”
She adds, “There are a lot of people who don’t like watermelon, but I believe if they got to taste an heirloom variety, they’d see what watermelon tasted like a hundred years ago and why people enjoy it.”
Explaining the word heirloom, she says, “The term is used for any fruit or vegetable that has seeds that are more than 50 years old, which you can kind of trace back [to its origins].”
The farmers grow the Red-N-Sweet heirloom watermelon, which Freeman is partial to. “It’s native to a parish in Louisiana and we couldn’t find that watermelon anywhere else,” she laments. “It’s a deep, crimson red and incredibly sweet. I’ve never had watermelon like that before,” she exclaims.
Freeman says they’re hard to find already grown, so you need to either know someone who grows them or buy the seeds yourself. Other heirloom watermelon varieties Freeman and Fitzwater found on their journey include Moon & Stars, Sugar Baby, Crimson Sweet and Rattlesnake. “Moon & Stars either have a yellow flesh or a red flesh,” notes Freeman. “Its name comes from the small yellow speckles like stars and one big yellow speckle like the moon. I was surprised to find the yellow watermelon flesh tastes more like an apricot,” she adds. “I loved realizing that all watermelons don’t taste the same.”
Freeman says in order to get closer to what a watermelon tasted like in the early 1800s or 1900s, before genetic modification, it’s best to buy the ones with seeds. “And I believe the reason we still have heirloom watermelons from hundreds and hundreds of years ago is attributed to us, because our Black ancestors kept that foodway alive and didn’t let it die. And that’s a beautiful thing,” she exclaims.
So beautiful that she and Fitzwater decided to commercially re-introduce the heirloom watermelons by growing them on a farm they bought just outside of Richmond. They sell their watermelons to chefs and restaurants.
“Our Red-N-Sweet watermelons and seeds are very popular in Richmond and Hampton Roads restaurants,” Freeman says with pride. “Chefs have turned it into sorbets, drinks, beer and more, because its sweetness makes it pretty versatile.”
She adds, “Chef Leah Branch, who is an incredible Black chef at The Roosevelt in Richmond, buys our watermelons and Rabia Kamara, who is the owner of Black-owned Ruby Scoops ice cream shop in Richmond, makes an incredible sorbet out of our Red-N-Sweet watermelons.”
How to Pick and Prepare Watermelon
But what’s the best way to pick a good watermelon? Well, it depends on who you ask. Freeman says, “When looking for a good watermelon, I usually turn it over and look for a dark spot on it where it was sitting on the ground and sugar has developed. That will probably be a pretty sweet watermelon.”
She notes that the tip to knock on a watermelon to see if it sounds hollow doesn’t work for her, but suggests talking to the watermelon farmers about it. “There’s a sense of fulfillment when you grow your own watermelons. But even if you can’t do that, go to a farmer’s market and seek out an heirloom watermelon,” she suggests.
“You might even make a farmer’s day by having a conversation with them about what types of watermelon they’re growing.” Additionally, she says that it’s better to buy seeded watermelons instead of seedless ones because they are GMO or genetically modified.
But Shields says he learned that GMO isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Farmer Burkette said grocery stores in the North started requiring a smaller watermelon that people could fit in their refrigerator or eat in one sitting,” Shields explains.
“He added that some consumers didn’t want to have to spit the seeds out of watermelons, so those demands require farmers to modify the way they grow watermelons, but that doesn’t make it less healthy.” Gant adds, “I think everybody should eat watermelon because it offers a lot of nutrients for your cells and helps you to eliminate a lot of the toxins in your body.”
Ancient physicians praised watermelon for its many healing properties. It was prescribed as a diuretic and as a way to treat children with heatstroke by placing the cool, wet rind on their heads.
Gaskins says he loves that the fruit can be versatile in how it’s prepared. “You can juice watermelon, put it in smoothies, put in fruit salads or regular salads,” he lists. “And I recently heard that one of my customers makes a watermelon salsa, so I’m going to try that myself,” he laughs.
Reclaiming Watermelon
“I really enjoy watermelon farming and love eating them,” exclaims Gaskin. “The Black people who don’t eat watermelon because of the stereotype need to get past it because once they taste a good watermelon, they’ll never want to stay away from it again.”
Freeman shares, “When enslaved people came to America, a lot was taken from them – their names, their language, their culture, their religion – one of the very few things that remain is our cooking traditions.” She continues, “So it’s important for those of us who may never have a chance to travel back to Africa to hold on to those foodway connections to the Motherland and we need to revere that and not vilify it.”
