3 Beloved Amusement Parks With A Racist Past
Black History Year
PushBlack
4.6 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2025
⏱️ 3 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Full of excitement, adrenaline rushes, thrills, and laughter, the amusement park is a place for fun. But there are a few secrets in these parks that aren’t so fun, especially when it comes to our history.
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2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, a non-profit Black media company.
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Transcript
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| 0:33.8 | Full of exciting rides, games, prizes, amusement parks hold a special place in our hearts. |
| 0:39.6 | But nothing is amusing about what some of these parts did to sell tickets. |
| 0:45.9 | I'm Len from Push Black, and this is Two-Minute Black History. |
| 0:50.8 | What You Didn't Learn in school. |
| 1:01.1 | Thank you. What You Didn't Learn in School. Let's take Coney Island. |
| 1:03.3 | One of the park's most popular attractions in the 1910s was African Dodger, |
| 1:09.1 | shockingly known as the Hit the Nigger baby or hit the coon. |
| 1:14.9 | A person would get three chances to hit a live black person with a ball to win a prize. |
| 1:23.2 | Despite a push to get this game banned, local newspapers didn't see anything wrong with it. |
| 1:29.2 | How about six flags? |
| 1:31.0 | Well, in the 1960s, the six flags in Texas had a sickening nostalgia for the Interbellum South. |
| 1:39.0 | It had an amphitheater that resembled a plantation house alongside Nailer's chicken plantation, a southern |
| 1:47.5 | restaurant. Park staff dressed as Confederate soldiers and the Confederate flag flew high at the |
| 1:55.1 | park entrance. Last but not least, Disneyland. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Disneyland in Anaheim, California had its own Aunt Jemima pancakes. |
| 2:10.6 | A black woman named Aileen Lewis, dressed as the racist caricature Aunt Jemima, greedy, and sang to customers. |
| 2:21.1 | She even posed for pictures with them. |
| 2:33.9 | Now, our history has its ups and downs, but our suffering isn't a joyride. Preserving and |
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