Jumping The Broom - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• Charles Dickens' novel, Great Expectations (first published in serial form in the publication All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861), contains a reference in chapter 48 to a couple having been married "over the broomstick." The ceremony is not portrayed, but the reference indicates that the readers would have recognized this kind of ceremony.

• American singer-songwriter, Brenda Lee, released the rockabilly song "Let's Jump The Broomstick" on Decca Records in 1959.

• August Wilson's 1990 play, The Piano Lesson, contains a reference in Act One, Scene 2 wherein one character, Doaker, in describing his family history during slavery says, "See that? That's when him and Mama Berniece got married. They called it jumping the broom. That's how you got married in them days."

• In 2008, the LOGO television series Noah's Arc released its first major movie, Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom, wherein two African-American men get married in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

• In 2011, Paula Patton, Laz Alonso, and Angela Bassett star in the film Jumping the Broom, wherein two very different families converge on Martha's Vineyard one weekend for a wedding. One source of controversy between the families is whether or not the couple will jump the broom as part of their wedding ceremony.