Black Face/Minstrel Shows

The Jazz Singer

Black Face in Early Theater• In early theater, all roles were played by

white men or boys, women and girls were portrayed by cross-dressing men and boys.

• One of the first prominent African characters in Elizabethan theater was in the Shakespearean tragedy “Othello”.– In Othello, the central character

“Othello” is a Moorish general who is in love with a Venetian Senator’s daughter.

• White actors portrayed Othello by putting on black makeup to show his Moorish background.

• This gave rise to the beginnings of black face in theater that continued to America.

Thomas Dartmouth Rice and Jim Crow• Thomas Dartmouth Rice (1808-1860) was

the first American to popularize black face with a character he created named Jim Crow and performed across the country.– The origins of Jim Crow have been lost

to history, but it is believed to be based on African American characters in song and legends from the time period.

– “Jim Crow” was always shown with tattered clothes, singing, and uneducated.

• Pro-slavery groups and Southerners used the “Jim Crow” character to depict slavery as generally benign, slaves as generally happy, and as justifying slavery as civilizing “uneducated African Americans.”

Thomas Dartmouth Rice and Jim Crow• Although Rice regularly changed the lyrics

to the “Jump Jim Crow” Song for each audience and each city, here are some of the common lyrics of the song.

Come listen all you galls and boysI'se jist from Tuckyhoe,I'm goin to sing a little song,My name is Jim CrowFist on de heel tap,Den on the toeEbry time I weel aboutI jump Jim Crow.Weel about and turn aboutEn do jus so,And every time I weel about,I jump Jim Crow.

1840s-1860s Height of Minstrel Shows• By the 1840s, the minstrel show had

settled into a multi-act show that dominated entertainment.

• The shows included comedy pieces, a short depiction of life on a plantation, and songs and dances.– Two typical characters included in all

minstrel shows who sat at the end of a semi-circle were the “bones” character and the “tambo” character.

• Minstrel show actors used their own invented dialect for the characters that they played.

• A performance of a minstrel show was held in the White House in 1844.

• Up to 10 theaters at a time in New York City had ongoing minstrel shows.

Stephen Foster’s Minstrel Legacy• Many popular songs that we know

today started in minstrel shows.• Stephen Foster (1826-1864)

considered the “father of American music” wrote many of these songs for his minstrel show with the Christy Minstrels.

• Dixie• Oh! Susanna• Camptown Races• Swanee River• Polly Wolly Doodle• Hard Times Come No More• My Old Kentucky Home• Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair• Blue Tail Fly

“Authentic” Minstrel Shows• The demand for minstrel shows was so high

that African Americans were able to act in them.

• They often labelled themselves as “Authentic” minstrel shows or “Georgia Plantation” shows.

• African Americans in minstrel shows still had to put on “black-face” and act in the racial stereo-types of white performers.

• One of the first well-know African Americans to perform in a minstrel show was William Henry Lane (1825-1853) who performed a character called “Master Juba” who regularly challenged and beat white dancers in a variety of dance styles.

• This created a huge problem for Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) who was very opposed to minstrel shows as being very racist but also recognized the importance of letting African Americans perform in front of white audiences.

End of Minstrel Shows• After the 1870s, the popularity of

minstrel shows declined, and they mostly disappeared.

• Frederick Douglass and others convinced the public that these caricatures were racially offensive.– Blackface performers are, "...the

filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow citizens."

• By the 1910s, only 3 minstrel shows continued to tour the United States and perform regularly.

Black Face• Although minstrel shows mostly

ended in the 19th century, black face in which white actors portrayed African Americans continued in Vaudeville and movies until the 1930s and radio and television until the 1950s.

• While acceptable in the 1920s when the Jazz Singer was made, by the 1930s, black face became socially unacceptable and rarely appeared after the 1930s in America.– However, some radio shows,

including Amon ‘N’ Andy continued the practice until the 1950s.

• The last regular appearance of black face occurred in England in 1978 on a show called Black & White.