African dodger
U.S. carnival game: throwing things at a black person
African dodger, also known as Hit the Coon or Hit the Nigger Baby, was a carnival game played in the United States. In the game, an African American would stick his head through a curtain, and attempt to dodge objects, such as eggs or baseballs, thrown at him by players. It was a popular carnival game from the 1880s up to the 1960s. The victims often suffered serious injuries. Smaller kit-based versions of the game were also sold to be played at home.
A Popular Mechanics article from 1910 noted that African dodger had become "too old and commonplace" and was being replaced with dunk tanks in which African Americans would fall into a tank of water when a target was hit with a ball. The illustration accompanying the article shows a game labeled "Drop the Chocolate Drop" and is captioned "Amusing to All but the Victim".
The public source identifies “African dodger” as u.S. carnival game: throwing things at a black person. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around African, dodger and carnival.
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This entry incorporates text from “African dodger” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.