Entry · catalog no. 9216
Stepin Fetchit
/ /ˈstɛpɪn ˈfɛtʃɪt/ /STEP-in FETCH-it
proper noun / epithet · United States (1920s) · 1920s
✓ Verified
1.
The stage name of Lincoln Perry (1902-1985), who played a lazy, slow-talking character in Hollywood films of the 1920s and 30s.
“Stepin Fetchit was the first Black actor to become a millionaire.”
2.
A charged insult for a Black person thought to act subservient to white people, recalling the screen character.
“They called him a Stepin Fetchit for bowing to the boss.”
Origin & Attribution
Perry took the name from a racehorse called 'Step and Fetch It', first as part of a vaudeville act and then solo. He appeared in 44 films between 1927 and 1939, among them In Old Kentucky (1927) and Hearts in Dixie (1929), one of the first studio films with a mostly Black cast. By the 1950s many Black Americans saw the persona as damaging, and the CBS documentary Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed (1968) singled him out; he sued unsuccessfully. In his 2005 biography Mel Watkins argued the character was a trickster in the tradition of 'putting on old massa', who made white employers do the work.
1929
In Old Kentucky; Hearts in Dixie (1929)
1968
CBS documentary condemns the persona; Perry sues
2005
Mel Watkins publishes a reassessment
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
United States (1920s) · 1920s
Spoken by
Older Black Americans; film historians
$STEPINThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Fading99 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
20/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1927
in the culture
Recorded here
2026
point of first record
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
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By region — how it actually sounds
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Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Hearts in Dixie (1929)
film
■
CBS, Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed (1968)
web
■
+ Cite a sourceMel Watkins, Stepin Fetchit: The Life and Times of Lincoln Perry (2005)
book
See also