In preparation for a couple of forthcoming biographies this month, I realized I need to prepare you and talk about Minstrel Shows.

If you’ve seen Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, you’ve done your homework already. But there’s a bit more to it than blackface and corny jokes.

Historically, a minstrel was a performer– a travelling poet and musician or what we’d call today a folk singer– dating back to medieval Europe. One of the latin root words of minstrel– ministerialiem– is defined as a “imperial household officer, one having an official duty”. And yeah, its also the root word for ‘minister’ and ‘ministry’ – but that’s a little much right now… I gotta pace myself over a whole month of writing.

Minstrels were once employed by royalty as staff entertainment. The difference between a minstrel and a jester– its close cousin– is the jester was mostly a comic who often practiced juggling, and a minstrel mostly a musician and storyteller. The word began to appear in the late 13th century until they began to go extinct in Europe in the 1700’s.

The first recorded instance of blackface is traced back to Shakespeare’s Othello simply because blacks were not allowed to perform on stage. The first person to perform in blackface was Lewis Hallam, Jr– an Englishman and actor who brought the first professional theatrical company to the States. He arrived in the mid 1750’s and in 1769 becomes the first White person to perform an African American-styled song.

Blackface clowns were common sites in circuses and travelling shows as of 1790 and beyond. Minstrelry’s rebirth in America goes back to the War of 1812 with Americans developing their own identity away from Europe and using skits to make fun of the old country and her ways, and certainly the success of performer Thomas ‘Daddy’ Rice in 1820. This man heard a crippled black street singer in Cincinnati sing a made-up song about his own name, Jim Crow, and stole his act, blackening his face and imitating the man’s movements. This act had three major repurcussions

1) Before then, blackface routines would appear briefly in larger stage productions. In Rice’s show, blackface was the central performance.
2) The song Rice was famous for– Jump Jim Crow– sadly was one of the first big pop hits in this country.
3) Its from this song we get the phrase Jim Crow – citing the laws keeping blacks and whites separated.

Thomas Rice must’ve been pretty phracking funny because his act caught fire and made the idea of performing in black face and imitating black culture from the stage very popular from this point until. (Thomas suffered from ‘progressive paralysis’ and died in 1860 at age 54)

Minstrel shows that followed took an even more horrorfying turn as they began following Rice’s successful routine and example and portrayed blacks in wildly offensive ways, portraying us as lazy, ignorant, superstitious… but happy and always ready with a song.

A typical minstrel performance had stock characters of a mammy, a slave, a dandy (guess a modern version is a, um, GQ / Details / Esquire subscribing metro-sexual… but black). The show itself followed a simple three act structure:

1. The troupe danced onstage to jokes and songs.
2. A wider variety of entertainment
3. The big closer: Either a slapstick musicial set on a plantation or a send up of a popular play

As mentioned, for years actual African American people were not allowed to perform onstage… but until the laws were changed, some touring minstrel companies secretly hired black performers. Eventually all black minstrel companies began touring America and Great Britian, though black actors still had to wear blackface make up. For decades this kind of theater was the only way white audiences could see what black life was about.

Consider that. The only thing you know about black people is what you see on BET.

You probably guessed things were equally bad for women. Minstrelry was an all male phenomenon until 1890 when some blackface female performers began to appear on stage in New York.

As blackface remained a, ahem, showbusiness tradition for many years, the actual minstrel show began dying out in the 1920’s.

But relax kids! This is all history and nasty old offensive black face is dead… unless you’re Harry Connick Jr and you find yourself in Australia. LOL?

Further reading and historical info can be found here
And please consider this site for even more