Summer’s Greatest Prize: Watermelons, With Seeds, Please

For many Americans, juicy, scarlet watermelon is a must for Juneteenth. The heirloom varieties are a sacred summer fruit.

In the fervor of June, heirloom watermelon varieties flourish in backyard gardens and family-run microfarms throughout the American South. Their scarlet-colored flesh, stippled with black seeds, is a striking relic of summers past in comparison to the seedless supermarket varieties. “I don’t believe in seedless watermelon — that is against my religion,” said Gabrielle E.W. Carter, a multimedia artist and gardener in Apex, N.C. The presence of ebony kernels is equivalent to winning a free ticket from a lottery scratch-off; it’s a modest thrill. All season long, you’ll find watermelon eating in its purest form — palms clenching the rinds over gingham tablecloths; all pleasure and no tropes — at family reunions, at get-togethers on terraces and around patio fire pits. Consuming the fruit is a sacrament of an American summer, and, for many Black Americans, a must for Juneteenth, the Texas-born holiday gaining national recognition that’s celebrated with red punch, strawberry spoon cake and dry-rubbed ribs.