Depicting African-American children as alligator bait was a common trope in American popular culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. The motif was present in a wide array of media, including newspaper reports, songs, sheet music, and visual art. There is an urban legend claiming that black children or infants were in fact used as bait to lure alligators, although there is no meaningful evidence that children of any race were ever used for this purpose. In American slang, alligator bait is a racial slur for African-Americans.

Coon cards were anti-Black, racist picture postcards and greeting cards sold in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. Coon was short for raccoon, an American mammal; coon was a commonly used derogatory term for African-Americans.