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Research material for

Day of Absence by Douglas Turner Ward
The History of Minstrelsy in the United States
This exhibit explores the history of minstrelsy, its significance in American history and theater,
and its enduring legacy. Utilizing materials from the USF Tampa Library's Special Collections
African American Sheet Music Collection, it is possible to trace the history of blackface
minstrelsy from its obscure origins in the 1830s to Hollywood jazz superstardom in the 1920s.

Minstrelsy in America, for all of its frivolous humor and popularity,

was an exploitative form of musical theater that exaggerated real-
life black circumstances and reinforced dangerous stereotypes
during the 19th and 20th centuries. The fact that blackface
minstrelsy began in the antebellum period and endured throughout
Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Great Migration, with
performers collecting and adding cultural aspects from each era to
their performances, hints at the impact, popularity, and complexity
of the minstrel show.

White supremacy and the belief in black inferiority remained at

minstrelsy’s base even though the structure of the performances and
subjects discussed in the music varied over time. The genre shaped
the nation’s views on race for over a century and reinforced white superiority well after the
abolition of slavery. While some today assume that minstrelsy’s blackface has roots in the
American South because of the genre’s focus on black degradation and slavery, minstrelsy was
born and evolved initially in the North.

For the majority of whites living in the pre-Civil War North,

slavery and black people were a distant reality, one that evoked
mixed emotions. If slavery was the commodification of black labor,
minstrelsy, with its focus on presenting authentically black songs
and dances, was the commodification of black culture. However,
the depictions of blacks in minstrel performances were exaggerated,
dehumanizing and inaccurate. Instead of representing black culture
on stage, blackface minstrel performers reflected and reinforced
white supremacy.

After emancipation in 1865, African American performers, seeing

minstrelsy as an opportunity for advancement, contributed a
humanizing element to their portrayal of blacks even though they
also performed in blackface. Black performers during the Jim Crow era combined blackface with
the newly popular genre of vaudeville and brought a black political agenda to their stage
performances. During the 1930s, minstrelsy lost its widespread popularity to jazz but could still
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be seen in aspects of American society such as film. The popular film The Jazz Singer (1927)
was about a white man wanting to become a blackface performer and featured Al Jolson, the
most well-known performer of the decade. At the time, the film was the biggest earner in Warner
Bros., and its success indicated that the age of minstrelsy in American history was far from over.
Even in the twenty-first century, the racial stereotypes derived from minstrel shows can still be
seen in popular culture.

"Jump Jim Crow"

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Thomas Dartmouth Rice's Jump Jim Crow is credited with launching blackface minstrelsy as a
musical genre in the United States. Scholars such as W.T. Lhamon Jr. have painstakingly
analyzed these early works from musical, social, and political perspectives.

The persistence of minstrelsy and its widespread influence on all aspects of American culture is
well documented by scholars, although its origins are not. No one can be sure when the first
white man “blackened up" to play an African American on stage; however, Thomas Dartmouth
“Daddy” Rice developed the first popularly known blackface minstrel character (called “Jim
Crow”) in 1830 and became the “Father of Minstrelsy.”

Born in New York in 1808, Rice became a traveling actor in the 1820s, performing all over the
country. Standing over six feet tall with a wiry build, he was a gifted dancer and actor. Through
his experiences growing up in an integrated northern neighborhood and as an actor touring the
South, he had an opportunity to observe African American speech, song and dance over the years
and used his observations, along with humor and exaggeration, to develop his first black stage
character, “Jim Crow.” Wearing tattered clothing and a burnt-cork blackface mask, Rice
accompanied his new song with an explosive dance that he claimed to have learned from an
African American slave.

Like his music, Rice’s dance derived from Irish and African American styles, but for most
Northern audiences, the combination was altogether new. While his jig-like footwork marked the
rhythm, his arms and hands followed the melody. As the extremely exaggerated and
stereotypical black buffoon “Jim Crow,” Rice’s stunning dance moves and witty irreverence
quickly inspired a new genre of racialized song and dance: minstrelsy, America’s first unique
artistic genre.

Rice's imitation of a black man and perpetuation of stereotypes was extremely popular with
whites in both the North and South, and Rice became a very rich man. Although he did not label
his act a minstrel show, his use of blackface, black stereotypes and the overall popularity and
financial success from the show set the basis for the Virginia Minstrels to perform as the first
professional white minstrel troupe in 1843.

Blackface
According to music scholar Jon W. Finson, early minstrelsy shared three primary characteristics:
“invocation of the ethnically and racially exotic [or] primitive”; absurdity, irreverence and
recklessness, or as Finson distilled it, “carnivalesque”; and longing for an ideal rural paradise.
The carnivalesque aspect is especially important because it inverted societal norms and gave
writers and performers license to deviate from the wholesome messages of the pulpit and dwell
in a perverse world. Just as British rule in the U.S. ended with Cornwallis’s surrender at
Yorktown and a possible performance of the song “The World Upside Down,” minstrelsy in
America reveled in the absurdity of peasants ruling over kings and the powerless becoming
powerful. Rather than drawing upon the arts and attitudes of the elite, minstrelsy dredged “low”
culture for inspiration. Minstrel music was often inspired by Anglo-Celtic songs, but the
performance, singing, and speech mimicked (and mocked) African American vernacular.
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The primary function of blackface wasn’t just to invoke the “other,” but also to act as a mask.
“The performers are maskers whose assumed disguises facilitate ironic poses that paint figurative
portraits,” Finson observed. In times of carnival, celebrants often transvested, or wore the clothes
of others to take on their identity. A common worker might dress up like an aristocrat or
deliberately dress in low garb to become a pirate, a bum, a convict, and so on.
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Solman, Alfred. My Chocolate Colored Baby. Chicago: McKinley Music Co.: Frank K. Root &
Co., c1898.
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Blackface allowed actors and artists to hide behind a caricature while protesting and mocking the
powerful without fear of retaliation. Minstrel performers could safely question authority while
claiming to be acting out authentic African American expressions.

Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice supposedly lifted his solo act from firsthand observations of
African American song and dance. According to Finson, Rice “was less concerned with
authenticity than with assuming the mask of the folkloric. The exaggerated features of his
disguise bear all the marks of a counterculture: he is not only poor, but his extremities and facial
features protrude in ungainly ways meant to confront the smooth regularity of idealized
gentility.” Some white performers augmented their noses and other features when performing to
look more stereotypically “black.”

Rice’s “Jim Crow” character reveled in absurdity. While a comical figure with little intelligence,
Crow was also a backwoods superman of sorts who could “wip my weight in wildcats” and “eat
an alligator.” In a sense, Crow represented the rugged populism of Andrew Jackson. Indeed,
Rice’s “Jim Crow” spoke out about tariffs, nullification, and the Bank of the United States, a far
cry from the supposed goings-on of plantation slaves.

Blackface would always be Janus-faced, allowing the artist to speak freely against the interests
of the powerful, a potent symbol of Jacksonian democracy. On the other hand, blackface
dangerously dehumanized blacks by introducing and reinforcing racial stereotypes. Blackface
popularized inaccurate representations of blacks while preventing blacks from representing
themselves.
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Sully, Lew. I Don’t Love Nobody: Polka Two-Step. New York: Howley, Haviland & Co., c1897.
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Abolition
While most people might associate minstrelsy with racism and oppression, it rose in popularity
with the movement to abolish slavery. It may seem strange and ironic that abolitionists helped
popularize blackface performance and black stereotypes, but minstrelsy tapped into a much
wider audience than anti-slavery pamphlets, books, or speeches. Starting in 1832, Thomas
Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice took his Jim Crow act from New York to London, kicking off a craze
for minstrel song and dance. Abolitionists on both sides of the Atlantic seized upon this new
format, including burnt-cork blackface, to promote the end of slavery. In one of Rice’s songs, the
master of a slave named “Gombo Chaff” went to Hell after he died, where he was forced to
perform the menial tasks he assigned to his slaves.

Part of the draw of minstrel shows was the opportunity for white urban audiences to get a
glimpse of purportedly genuine African American life, behavior, singing and dancing that took
place on rural plantations. Songs supporting abolition emphasized the suffering of slaves rather
than contentment on the plantation. However, there was a condescending edge to the
abolitionists’ call to pity slaves.

By the end of the Civil War, the wave of popular minstrelsy ebbed away. While minstrel troupes
still performed and sheet music still sold, it would never attain its popularity of the antebellum
days. Still, minstrelsy and its influence lived far beyond its initial blush of popularity – and the
abolitionist movement.
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Sedgwick, A. Beneath the Weeping Willow, or, Slave’s Lament. New-York (333 Broadway,
New-York): Horace Waters, c1853.
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Griffin, G. W. H. Poor Old Slave. Boston: G.P. Reed & Co., 1851.
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Minstrel Structure and Iconography

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Odell, H. F. (Herbert Forrest). White-Smith Minstrel Opening Chorus: No. 1. New York: White-
Smith Music Pub. Co., c1902.

Early minstrels such as Rice specialized in solo performances. Rice’s “Jim Crow” became the
template for an enduring “Sambo” archetype. The word “Sambo” is derived from the Spanish
word used to describe people of mixed African and Native American descent (“Zambo”) and was
apparently a common name for slaves as early as the 1700s.

In minstrelsy, the Sambo represented the uneducated rural slave. Urban African Americans were
depicted by the “Zip Coon,” typified by his flamboyant dress and his clumsy attempts at
sophisticated speech. Of course, there is always the “Mammy,” an African American mother
figure, often doting on her “pickanninnies,” or black children. Finally, the name “Hannah”
appears in many songs. “Hannah” refers to a mulatto woman who is usually sexually desired, a
symbol of master-on-slave sexuality.

Perhaps the most enduring “mammy” icon is Aunt Jemima. Billy Kersands, a black minstrel
performer, wrote the song “Aunt Jemima” for a white minstrel artist in 1875. The song was
performed in 1889 with a man named Chris Rutt in the audience. Rutt, seeing an opportunity for
commercializing the Aunt Jemima character, went on to trademark the name and sold it to The
Davis Company. Davis eventually hired a former enslaved woman named Nancy Green to sell
their company’s pancakes at the Chicago Exposition in 1893. The "mammy" icon of Aunt
Jemima has lived far beyond the minstrel song.

The first minstrel ensemble was formed in 1843, the Virginia Minstrels. Shortly after, Christy’s
Minstrels set the standard structure and iconography for future minstrel shows. The band
presented itself in a semicircle facing the audience. The interlocutor sat in the middle of the arc
and spoke in the formal tones of a trained actor. He was the “straight man” of the ensemble. The
jokers (“gagmen” or “endmen”) stood at either end of the arc, one called “Tambo” who played
tambourine, the other called “Bones” who played castanets or spoons.

The “endmen” jesters began the show with joking banter and quips, which gave way to music
and dancing. Along with comic songs, a sentimental ballad was usually performed by a
“romantic tenor.” The second act, the “olio,” featured a variety show (an early forerunner of
vaudeville) of song and dance. The final act featured a one-act play, usually set on a plantation.
Finally, the entire ensemble performed a rousing “walkaround” song and dance before leaving
the stage.

Christy's Minstrels and Stephen Foster

Apparently inspired by the Virginia Minstrels, singer Edwin P. Christy and his stepson George
formed Christy’s Minstrels in 1844. The group had a long and fruitful career, with Edwin
retiring in 1855 and George performing until his death in 1868. Part of the secret to their success
was their chief songwriter Stephen Foster, who had been impressed by Thomas Rice’s “Jim
Crow” act as a child. He later sent Rice several of his original compositions in hopes that he
would play them.
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Stephen Foster helped modernize the music of minstrelsy by mining contemporary musical
arrangements for inspiration instead of relying on older dance songs such as jigs and reels. Even
as his music was populist, his lyrics were safe for the white middle class, stripped of the sexually
and politically suggestive material common among other songwriters. His classic “Oh! Susanna”
borrowed from a contemporary polka rhythm. Foster wrote many comic pieces, including the
enduring “Gwine to Run All Night or De Camptown Races.”

The enlarged minstrel shows of the 1840s and 50s tended to alternate between comic and
sentimental songs, and Foster was a master of all styles. Foster’s most popular sentimental song
was undoubtedly “Old Folks at Home: An Ethiopian Melody.” In this classic, Foster draws from
Irish melodies while retaining the vernacular inspired by African Americans. In this song as well
as his “My Old Kentucky Home,” Foster appeals to listeners’ longing for an ideal rural life, one
of the central subjects of minstrelsy.
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Foster, Stephen Collins. Old Folks at Home: Suwanee River Route to Florida. [S.l.: s.n., 189-?]
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Foster, Stephen Collins. Old Black Joe. New York (547 Broadway & 39 Union Square, New
York): Wm. A. Pond & Co., c1860.
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Plantation Nostalgia
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White, C. A. I'se Gwine Back to Dixie. Boston (298 & 300 Washington St.): White, Smith &
Co.; Chicago: Root & Sons Music Co.; New York: Wm. A. Pond & Co.; Montreal: A.J.
Boucher; Cincinnati: A. Squire; San Francisco: M. Gray; Sacramento: L.K. Hammer, c1874.

The function of blackface changed after the Civil War. Blackface characters were meant to be
“authentic” representations of African Americans instead of a carnivalesque mask. During the
19th century, industrialization swept Americans from rural farms into cities. Blackface
characters were often used to symbolize the popular longing for a return to simple agrarian life
from the crowded urban lives many had adopted. Especially after the Civil War, blackface
characters were cast as simpletons longing for easy lives on a plantation. In many variations, an
elderly ex-slave longed to return to his master’s plantation to rest his bones before he died. These
aged characters also implicitly longed for the supposed safety and stability provided by the rigid
racial hierarchy of yore. Emancipation had ushered in uncertainty and racial violence. Returning
to the plantations could turn back the clock to a mythical simpler time, and at least according to
some white songwriters, a happier time. For most songwriters, these songs were meant to evoke
memories of growing up on the family farm, not necessarily slaves on a plantation.

O'Reilly, Pat. I'm Going Back to Dixie Land. Lansing, Mich.: E.K. Arnold Music Co., 1925.

Haubiel, Charles. "1865 A.D." for Violin or Violoncello and Piano. New York: Composer's
Press, [c1941].
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Thaler, Rudolf. Memories of the South. Philadelphia, Pa.: Eclipse Pub. Co., c1908.
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Jubilees, Gospel, and Spirituals

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Tanassy, Cornel. Goin' to the Promised Lan': A Rhythmic Spiritual. New York: Joe Davis, Inc.,
c1932.

According to John W. Finson, “The music that first presented itself as a model for ‘realistic’
minstrel songs came from the black religious genre known as the ‘spiritual[.]’” The Jubilee, a
celebration or spiritual song, refers to “Jubilo,” or the Biblical practice of setting slaves free
every fifty years. Emancipation in the U.S. harkened back to this practice. After the Civil War,
minstrel music began to mimic black singing and melodies more closely. In 1871, the Fisk
(University) Jubilee Singers emerged from academia with an all-black chorus and more
authentically black musical arrangements. In the 1880s, Sam Lucas of the Original Georgia
Minstrels wrote authentic-sounding jubilees of his own. Despite this slow drift toward authentic
black music, white composers still depicted black religious practices as outlandish and often
laced their spirituals with mean-spirited condescension and racist politics. Indeed some songs
and sheet music imagery treated black spirituality as a source of corruption instead of virtue. As
vaudeville gained in popularity in the 1890s, large minstrel groups downsized or disbanded,
preventing them from performing large choral pieces such as jubilees. The genre never
recovered.
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African American Minstrel Performers

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Persley, George W. Home of Uncle Joe. Cincinnati: John Church & Co., c1876.

Unlike the majority of white blackface performers in the 1800s who were born in Northern cities
prior to the Civil War, most African American blackface minstrel performers were born after the
Civil War and in Southern cities. However, the differences between white and African American
minstrel performers do not stop there. Although the age of urban industrialization brought great
opportunity for whites in America, according to Karen Sotiropoulos, “for black Americans, the
1890s ushered in a decade of shrinking possibilities, and artists and activists alike desperately
sought any avenue for advancement.” African American artists saw their chance for
advancement and financial security on the minstrel stage. These artists migrated out of the South
and traveled to the West and New York City and formed minstrel groups who advertised their
authentic blackness as a selling point to Northern audiences.

Like their white counterparts before them, they “blackened up,” sang, danced, and discussed
provocative issues like sex in their shows. The structure of their performances and their removal
of 19th century Victorian conventions was typical for all minstrel shows at the time. However,
black minstrel performers felt the added responsibility to counter the stereotypes of black
identity as laughable, primitive and overly sensual, leading them to develop a self-presentation
on stage that balanced racist stereotypes and political commentary. African American blackface
performers were also very aware of their off-stage public presentation and conducted themselves
in a way to oppose the fictional representations of blacks they performed onstage. Their
performances appealed to white audiences but also catered to the black middle class primarily
because of the performers’ connection with activist organizations, publications and presentations.
Black performers’ association with these groups and their popularization with white audiences
allowed them to “transcend local vaudeville stages to bring their art to Broadway and beyond."

Blind Tom
Thomas Greene Bethune, also known as Thomas Wiggins or “Blind Tom”, was not a minstrel
performer but was nonetheless a victim of the relationship of wonder and revulsion that 19th
century white Americans had with black entertainers. Most sources agree that Wiggins was born
blind in Georgia in 1849 and was “thrown in” with his mother, Charity, during her sale to a
Colonel Bethune in 1850. It is also generally agreed upon that Wiggins was an extraordinarily
talented composer and had an affinity for music as a child. At four years old, he composed his
first musical piece. At eight years old, he was hired out to his manager/owner, Perry Oliver, and
taken on a musical tour of the United States and Europe. Wiggins composed the pieces displayed
in this exhibit, titled “Rain Storm” and “Daylight”, before the age of ten years old. Without a
doubt, Blind Tom was an extraordinary child who his master and his master’s family used for
their personal financial gain.

With all of these facts known about “Blind Tom” the entertainer, very little is known about
Thomas Wiggins the man. He was blind and according to various sources, he had some sort of
developmental disability although the extent of and name of the disability is lost to history due to
the lack of medical knowledge at the time. The sources themselves are questionable because they
are from white men who often gave contradictory accounts about Thomas’s intelligence and
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reasoning abilities. Often their accounts of him and his talent are tainted with fear, confusion,
racism, and bigotry and thus cannot be totally believed.
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Blind Tom. Rain Storm: Op. 6. New York: J.L. Peters, c1865.

However, there is a substantial amount of information about Thomas that can be garnered from
these less than ideal accounts. For example, John A’Becket, in “Blind Tom As He Is Today”
(1898), wrote after meeting Thomas that he “will always be a child,” but this comment came
after Thomas insulted him. A’Becket hid his anger with Thomas by explaining that “his actions
are sometimes saved from rudeness only by his simplicity.” A’Becket also stated that Thomas
“made no remark to any one actually present except when addressed” but then described him as
intelligent, dignified and prideful in his conversation.

Could it be that Thomas had a slight disability or even no disability at all that he consciously
exaggerated in order to be able to act outside of the racial barriers of the time? Geneva Southall,
author of “Blind Tom: A Misrepresented and Neglected Composer-Pianist,” seems to think so. In
Southall’s essay, Thomas is presented as a misunderstood man. Southall contends the traditional
account of Thomas as an imbecile is because of his “childish and animal-like behavior on stage”
and states that it is “entirely possible that Tom’s managers might have deliberately cultivated
such behavior in order to suggest to audiences that Tom’s genius derived from occult practices,”
which would have added to his mystery and popularity with white audiences. Southall also
points to the heated custody battle that occurred between Thomas’s mother and the Bethune
family after Thomas was freed as a sign that he was not as dependent as advertisements and
eyewitness accounts portrayed him to be. Southall asks the question, “why …would the
Bethunes be so determined to retain the legal custodianship of an ‘idiot’ who would be a physical
and economic liability to them?” She also states that there is evidence that “Tom passed
numerous tests designed to test his knowledge of music theory” not just his ability to imitate
sounds and compositions. Also emphasized in both eyewitness accounts and in Southall’s essay
is the complexity of the hundred-plus musical pieces Thomas composed throughout his lifetime.
To Southall all of this evidence points to a much more intelligent and self-aware Thomas
Wiggins than whites of his time would have liked to admit. Admitting so would have forced
them to acknowledge Thomas as a musical genius. Instead, they painted a virtual, idiotic
“blackface” on Thomas and created the character “Blind Tom” to market his persona and fit the
assumed inferiority of blacks.
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Williams and Walker

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Walker, George & Bert Williams. Williams & Walker's Album of Gems. New York: Hurtig &
Seamon, [1899?].

At the beginning of the 20th century and the era of the “New Negro,” Bert Williams and George
Walker founded their theater company, the Williams and Walker Company, alongside
progressive innovations in black literature, poetry, and art. Although at first glance the founding
of an African American minstrel show seems in direct opposition to the development of the
“New Negro,” the two are in fact founded in the same radical spirit of change. Just like the
writers, poets and artists of the “New Negro” era, the Williams and Walker Company was a
direct product of African American migration from the rural South to the cities of the Northeast.
The Williams and Walker Company was not the first African American blackface minstrel
company to exist, but it was arguably the first to bring postwar black musical theater that
contested the cultural ownership of racial representations to the attention of a white mainstream
audience.

Williams, Bert. I Don't Like No Cheap Man. New York (45 E. 20th St., New York): Jos. W.
Stern & Co., c1897.

Williams, Bert. Why Don't You Get a Lady of Your Own : The Swell Coon Laughing Success.
New York: J.W. Stern, c1898.
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Williams, Bert. It Ain't No Use to Sing Dem Songs to Me. New York (Mark Stern Building, 34 E.
21st St., New York): Jos. W. Stern & Co. N.Y., c1902.

Palmer, Jack. Everybody Loves My Baby: But My Baby Don't Love Nobody but Me. New York:
Clarence Williams, c1924.

Williams, Bert. You're Gwine to Get Somethin' What You Don't Expect. New York: Leo Feist,
c1910.
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Ragtime and the "Coon song"

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Hogan, Ernest. All Coons Look Alike to Me: A Darkey Misunderstanding. New York (49-51 W.
28th St., New York): M. Witmark & Sons, c1896.

By 1900, African American musicians and performers moved beyond minstrelsy and made
artistic innovations, starting with ragtime. White audiences around the country responded
enthusiastically. Ragtime bubbled to the surface of popular culture during the 1890s, and starting
in 1897, exploded onto the scene.

Scholars Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff note, “Ragtime released a pent-up reservoir of
modernism in African American culture, providing the antidote to ‘Ethiopian minstrelsy,’ which
had stifled the development of race entertainment for most of the nineteenth century. Just as the
century drew to a close, the lid blew off, unleashing a torrent of creativity that swept thousands
of black writers, performers, musicians, and entrepreneurs into the professional ranks.”

Born in Kentucky in 1865, Ernest Hogan got his start in minstrel shows, but he is best known for
his innovations in music, which he dubbed “ragtime.” He became the first black producer and
performer in a Broadway show, “The Oyster Man” (1907). But Hogan would dwell in the
shadows cast by his 1896 hit, “All Coons Look Alike to Me.” He admittedly lifted the cakewalk
rhythm from obscure backroom musicians and lifted the title from a line he heard sung, “All
pimps look alike to me.” His variation tapped into the strong currents of racism in the U.S. and
gave rise to a whole new sub-genre of ragtime called “coon songs.” A glut of coon-themed songs
flooded the market after his smash hit.

In Hogan’s song, the lyrics are attributed to a woman who left her man for a wealthier mate. She
reasoned, “All coons look alike to me, I have got another beau you see / And he is just as good to
me as you ever tried to be. / He spends his money free, I know we can’t agree / So I don’t like
you no how, all coons look alike to me.” The imitative “coon songs” that followed were often far
more degrading than the break-up depicted by Hogan.

The surge of racism in coon songs was an outgrowth of white fear that African Americans would
migrate from rural to urban areas, particularly in the North. Between the 1880s and the “Great
Migration” during World War I, that is just what happened. Coon songs tend to reinvent the
archetypical antebellum “Zip Coon” as a black urban dweller whose primitive nature is both
revealed and disguised by fancified clothes and habits. Whereas the old “Zip Coon” satirized
pretentious, effete eastern socialites, the new coon represented backward blacks who wanted to
impress with ostentatious speech, dress and jewelry. Earlier songs of the 1880s and 1890s often
portrayed blacks cutting one another with razors over games of chance. Sheet music covers often
portrayed blacks wearing top hats, tail coats, and watches on chains. Ragtime made the "Zip
Coon" the most recognizable character in American music by 1900.

Although the music changed, the residue of minstrelsy still colored the spirit and content of the
material. Writing in the Indianapolis Freeman, a black newspaper, “Tom the Tattler” wrote in
1901, “The colored man writes the ‘coon’ song, the colored singer sings the ‘coon’ song, the
colored race is compelled to stand for the belittling and ignominy of the ‘coon’ song, but the
money from the ‘coon’ song flows with ceaseless activity into the white man’s pockets.” The
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racist nature of the music was coupled with the exploitative music industry, which poorly
compensated black performers and writers.

Al Jolson
Perhaps the most popular blackface artist of the 20th century, Al Jolson was a hugely influential
entertainer, inspiring future artists such as Judy Garland, Jackie Wilson and Bob Dylan. A
natural entertainer with impressive energy, Jolson’s performance style was over the top,
wringing all the humor, sentimentality and melodrama from a song. His complete commitment to
songs and characters entranced audiences.

Born in Lithuania in 1886, Asa Yoelson immigrated to New York as a child and grew up singing
and performing in circuses, vaudeville shows, and burlesques. In 1909, he was hired as a
blackface performer in Lew Dockstader's Minstrels, his first experience in the genre. In 1911, he
made a smashing debut as an opening act for a play, singing Stephen Foster songs in blackface.
His popularity soon overwhelmed Broadway and Jolson became a star and enjoyed a string of hit
performances until he retired from the live stage in 1926.

Jolson’s crowning glory came in 1927 in the first full-length talking movie, The Jazz Singer. His
semi-autobiographical character struggled to decide whether to pursue a career as a jazz singer or
pursue his father’s vocation as a cantor at a Jewish temple. Jolson’s liberal views on race and his
belief that African and Jewish Americans shared experiences of discrimination and hate gave his
performances depth and meaning that was missing from most white blackface entertainers before
and since. Unlike the minstrel shows that came before, The Jazz Singer called attention to the
fact that the performer wore a mask. His performance enthralled audiences around the country. It
was even reported that black audiences wept during screenings.
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Caesar, Irving. Is It True What They Say About Dixie?. New York: I. Caesar, Inc., c1936.
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Jolson starred in other major films during the 1930s and beyond, but The Jazz Singer is the film
that vaulted him to international stardom. The film’s debut brought a flood of praise and broke
all existing box office records. His performance is credited with popularizing African American
music more than ever before and creating new interest in contemporary black artists such as
Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Fats Waller. The Jazz Singer also helped make Jolson the
highest-paid entertainer of his day.

The practice of blackface continued in the U.S. for several more decades, steadily declining after
the 1930s. The Civil Rights movement and changing attitudes on race helped relegate blackface
to the dustbin of history.
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Donaldson, Walter. My Mammy: The Sun Shines East--The Sun Shines West. New York: Irving
Berlin Inc., c1921.