Joy Reid shares video claiming ‘Jingle Bells’ is a racist song written as a ‘mockery of Black people’

December 11th, 2025

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 25: Joy-Ann Reid speaks onstage during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation annual Legislative Conference National Town Hall at Walter E. Washington Convention Center on September 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Congressional Black Caucus Foundation ) — Joy-Ann Reid speaks onstage during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation annual Legislative Conference National Town Hall at Walter E. Washington Convention Center on September 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Congressional Black Caucus Foundation )

OAN Staff Blake Wolf
5:25 PM – Wednesday, December 10, 2025

Former MSNBC host Joy Reid shared a viral video on social media that claims the beloved Christmas song “Jingle Bells” is rooted in racism and was written “as a mockery of Black people.”

In the video Reid shared on Instagram, a man expressed his disapproval of a plaque in Medford, Massachusetts, honoring the site where James Pierpont is believed to have written the song in 1850.

“This is where a racist Confederate soldier wrote ‘Jingle Bells’ to make fun of Black people,” the caption read. “This plaque in Medford, MA honors where James Lord Pierpont wrote ‘Jingle Bells’, but ignores its origins in blackface minstrelsy.”

The lengthy video goes on to claim that Pierpont’s line, “The One Horse Open Sleigh,” was written with the intended purpose of utilizing it in racist performances, which saw White actors dress up in blackface to mock Black people attempting to engage in winter activities.

The video claims that the “original lyrics” theme of ‘laughing all the way’ likely references a racist comedic routine known as the ‘Laughing Darkie.’

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The claims stem from a 2017 research paper by Kyna Hamill, a Boston University theater historian.

Hamill stated the song’s original origins “emerged from the economic needs of a perpetually unsuccessful man, the racial politics of antebellum Boston, the city’s climate, and the intertheatrical repertoire of commercial blackface performers moving between Boston and New York.”

“Although ‘One Horse Open Sleigh,’ for most of its singers and listeners, may have eluded its racialized past and taken its place in the seemingly unproblematic romanticization of a normal ‘white’ Christmas, attention to the circumstances of its performance history enables reflection on its problematic role in the construction of blackness and whiteness in the United States,” she wrote.

Pierpont went on to change the song’s name to “Jingle Bells” prior to the start of the Civil War, at which point Pierpont “abandoned his family, who were northern abolitionists, and enlisted in the Confederate Army,” according to the Instagram video shared by Reid.

Adding her own caption to the video, Reid wrote, “American history is a horror show,” accompanied by red exclamation mark emojis.

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