Former MSNBC host Joy Reid drew criticism this week after sharing a social media video claiming that the popular Christmas song “Jingle Bells” was originally written to mock Black people.
Reid shared the video with her 1.3 million Instagram followers. The clip shows a man wearing a Christmas sweater and Santa hat standing in Medford, Massachusetts, near a plaque marking the location where songwriter James Lord Pierpont is believed to have written the song in 1850. In the video, the man removes his hat and scowls at the plaque as text appears on screen claiming the song was written by a “racist Confederate soldier” and originated in bigoted minstrel shows.
According to the video’s captions, Pierpont composed the song—originally titled “The One Horse Open Sleigh”—while struggling financially and allegedly wrote it for performances in which white actors wore blackface to mock black people attempting to participate in winter activities. The video further claims that the lyric “laughing all the way” likely references a racist comedic trope of the era known as the “Laughing Darkie.”
The video also alleges that Pierpont later patented the song in 1859, renamed it “Jingle Bells,” and, at the outbreak of the Civil War, abandoned his family to join the Confederate Army. It claims he went on to write Southern fight songs intended to rally men defending slavery. Pierpont was the uncle of financier J.P. Morgan.
Reid’s decision to share the video prompted renewed debate over the song’s history. “Jingle Bells” is widely regarded as one of the most popular Christmas songs in the United States and is commonly performed during the holiday season.
Reid, whose MSNBC program The ReidOut was canceled months ago after nearly five years on the air, has previously been criticized for racially charged commentary. Last year, she promoted a false claim that former President Donald Trump sought “reparations for white people.”
She is not the first public figure or institution to question the song’s origins. In a prior controversy, Council Rock Primary School in upstate New York faced backlash from parents and residents after banning “Jingle Bells” from its holiday concert due to alleged ties to blackface and minstrel performances.
The claim that “Jingle Bells” has racist origins traces back to a 2017 academic article by Boston University professor Kyna Hamill, which examined the song’s historical context and early performances.
The renewed attention has once again placed one of America’s most beloved Christmas songs at the center of a broader cultural and historical debate.
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There is truly something wrong with this woman. Ms. Reid needs some psychiatric help.
JOY REID IS THE RACIST who sees Racism in EVERYTHING! Nobody should EVER hire this POS!
It was written 4 years BEFORE the Civil War by a New England man, James Pierpont, whose father was a pastor for a Unitarian Church first in Massachusetts before moving to Savannah, Georgia where it eventually closed down due to its abolitionist views. James Pierpont attended this church and was recently married when he wrote that song. NONE of the lyrics are racist at all and simply talk about riding a one-horse open sleigh and laughing all the way. Anyone who would read racism in them is completely out of their mind.
Will these race obsessed clowns ever stop being cringe. Joy is probably pretty wealthy by now. She should just pack her bags and move to her motherland if this country is so drenched in racism.