A new round of debate over holiday traditions kicked off this week after former MSNBC host Joy Reid shared a video online that accuses the classic Christmas song āJingle Bellsā of having racist origins. The video, which quickly went viral, reignited interest in a years-old academic paper but has also drawn criticism for how that research is being interpreted.
In the video, a man wearing a red holiday sweater stands in front of a historical plaque in Medford, Massachusetts. The plaque marks the site where James Lord Pierpont is believed to have written the song in the 1800s. The video claims the tuneās early performances were done by White actors in blackface and used to āmockā Black Americans, according to captions and narration in the clip.
āThis is where a racist Confederate soldier wrote āJingle Bellsā to make fun of Black people,ā the opening caption reads. It goes on to allege that the original version of the song, called āThe One Horse Open Sleigh,ā was written by Pierpont for minstrel shows that featured exaggerated portrayals of African Americans. The video also points out that Pierpont later fought for the Confederate Army during the Civil War.
Joy Reid, who hosted The ReidOut on MSNBC until it was canceled earlier this year, reposted the video to her Instagram account, where she has over 1.3 million followers. Her only caption was, āLord have mercy.ā
The video references a 2017 research paper published by Cambridge University Press titled The Story I Must Tell: āJingle Bellsā in the Minstrel Repertoire by Boston University scholar Kyna Hamill. The paper does explore the songās performance history in 19th-century minstrel shows, which were often racially offensive. However, Hamill has since said her work is being taken out of context.
In an earlier interview with the Boston Herald, Hamill stated, āI never said it was racist now,ā and explained that she never intended for her work to be used to cancel the carol or influence how people celebrate the holidays. Her main focus was on where the song came from and how it was used in performance at the time.
āThe legacy of āJingle Bellsā is, as we shall see, a prime example of a common misreading of much popular music from the nineteenth century,ā Hamill wrote in her paper. She also noted that elements of the songās original performancesāincluding use in blackface minstrel actsāhave often been left out of modern accounts.
Hamill clarified that she did not claim Pierpont wrote the song as a deliberate act of mockery or that it should be considered offensive today. āI was not looking to dictate what songs are sung at Christmas,ā she said.
Reid has not commented further on her post or responded to questions about whether she intended to label the song itself as racist.
Pierpontās connection to the Confederacy has been a topic of historical discussion before. While he is best known today for āJingle Bells,ā his support for the South during the Civil War has led some to question his legacy in recent years. Still, the song itself remains one of the most widely recognized and performed carols during the holiday season, with countless versions recorded by artists around the world.
As of now, there are no official efforts underway to remove āJingle Bellsā from school programs or public performances, but the video and its claims have sparked another round of conversations on social media about the deeper history behind popular traditions.