Blackface minstrelsy was an established nineteenth-century theatrical practice, principally of the urban North, in which white men caricatured blacks for sport and profit. It began with one subjugated group, the white working class mimicking the people below them. At the height of its popularity, it consisted of a semicircle of four or five or sometimes more white male performers (there were very rarely female performers in the antebellum minstrel show) made up with facial blacking of greasepaint or burnt cork and adorned in outrageously oversized and/or ragged "Negro" costumes. Armed with an array of instruments, usually banjo, fiddle, bone castanets, and tambourine, the performers would stage a tripartite show. On one end would be Mr. Bones (the castanet player). At the other end would be Mr. Tambo (the tambourine player). Mr. Interlocutor would be seated in the center. The first part offered up a random selection of songs interspersed with what passed for black wit and japer; the second part (or "olio") featured a group of novelty performances (comic dialogues, malapropistic "stump speeches," cross-dressed "wench" performances, and the like); and the third part was a narrative skit, usually set in the South, containing dancing, music and burlesque. In general, the minstrel show featured stereotyped caricatures rather than genuine depictions of blacks, and were usually demeaning.
| 1815 | Emergence of blackface musical stage performance in the U.S. |
| 1828 - 1831 | Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice created the character of an old, crippled black slave, dubbed Jim Crow, in a song-and-dance routine. |
| June 1842 | First performance of a true minstrel show: the Virginia Minstrels in Buffalo, New York. The show was in two parts. |
| 1850s | Immigrant Irish take their place on the blackface stage. The show was now in three parts. |
| 1860s | Black minstrel artists begin to put on shows for white and black audiences |
| Early 1900s | Immigrant Jews replace the Irish on the blackface stage. |
| 1927 | Al Jolson performs in blackface in the landmark film, The Jazz Singer. |
| 1949 | Jolson Sings Again is released in theaters leading all other films that year in box office receipts. |
| 1980 | Neil Diamond's remake of The Jazz Singer is released. Traditional blackface is given a twist here: Diamond's character gets his start with a black musical group and attempts to pass as black by blacking up his face and Afroing his hair. |
In 1927, when Amos 'N' Andy was on the verge of becoming the most popular radio show in the United States, The Jazz Singer opened as both the first talking picture and the first movie musical. Show Boat, the first Broadway musical play (in which the story was more than a pro forma excuse for the songs), premiered that same year. The Jazz Singer featured Al Jolson in blackface, while in Show Boat Tess Gardella, billed as "Aunt Jemima", played Queenie in blackface. Show Boat's subplot featured one of the two major tropes in racial mixing: the tragic mulatta who tries to pass. The Jazz Singer took as its subject the other: blacking up.
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Copyrighted
2001, United States
of America
Anita Gonzalez & Ian Granick