The dance is said to have originally been brought from the Congo by enslaved Africans. It may have also developed in Haiti where it was known as Giouba or Djouba. Minstrel audiences would not see William Henry Lane, who is credited as one of the most influential figures in the creation of American tap dance. Lane developed a unique style of using his body as a musical instrument, blending African-derived syncopated rhythms with movements of the Irish jig and reel. In witnessing the white gloved hands of the minstrel men, they would not see the beautiful gestures of the adowa dance from Ghana.
In watching Africans perform, whether on the plantation or selling fish at the wharf at Little Five Points in New York City, the complicated language of this dance survives. Even when African Americans began to perform in the minstrel shows and audiences saw new dances and comedy routines that the whites had not yet appropriated, such as stop-time taps, the sand, and Virginia essence, they would not see the improvisation of Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton building on syncopated rhythms that began with field hollers, and work songs, and the blues.
They would not see the magic that created a viable life, culture, and art from the wreckage of slavery and Jim Crow, magic that shines with the brilliance of the ancestors who sacrificed all that they had, knowing that they would indeed live on. So tonight we speak the names of all the African American artists who have come before, and we speak the names of the Scottsboro Boys. Bean, Annemarie. Oxford University Press, Lhamon, W.
Harvard University Press, Traylor, Eleanor. Walker, Aida Overton. Woll, Allen. Connect Donate Now. Haverly also made his minstrels a national touring company, instead of a resident urban troupe as earlier minstrels had been. His handsomely outfitted minstrels, led by a blaring brass band, paraded grandly through every town they entered.
After the Civil War, large numbers of black performers broke into American show business as minstrels. To do so, they had first to win white audiences away from white minstrels. The way they did it set an enduring pattern for black entertainers.
Other black minstrels also stressed their race, claiming to be ordinary ex-slaves doing what came naturally, rather than skilled entertainers acting out white-created stereotypes of blacks. Because of minstrelsy, then, black people became part of American show business. Initially, they were limited to stereotyped roles and given little credit for their performing skills. But they had a foot in the door and could begin their long struggle to modify and break free of the patterns and images imposed on them by white minstrels.
Echoing the racial stereotypes of earlier minstrels, happy-go-lucky Uncle Remus played by James Baskett sang an ode to "Mr. Birdbird on my shoulder" in the animated Disney film "Song of the South. Minstrels adapted their material to these changes as best they could. But their blackface make-up limited the effectiveness of their portrayal of immigrants, and they lost their identity as minstrels if they discarded the burnt cork.
Eventually, the blackface act, kept alive by stars like Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor, became just one of many standard vaudeville and musical-comedy turns; the minstrel show disappeared-but not the stereotyped black mask behind which lay the uncomfortable reality of African-American life in America. Please support this year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.
All Rights Reserved. To license content, please contact licenses [at] americanheritage. Blackface: the Sad History of Minstrel Shows. Edwin S. Grosvenor Robert C. Editor's Preface The recent furor over the use of blackface by Virginia's governor and attorney general while they were in college reminds us of a sad chapter in our history — the long tradition of minstrel shows in which whites covered their faces with burnt cork or grease paint in order to profit from denigrating African-Americans.
White audiences joined in the singing until the theater shook with laughing, foot-stomping, hand-clapping people. Blackface minstrel shows were the most popular form of entertainment in America for half a century. Many black minstrels were skilled entertainers acting out white-created stereotypes of blacks.
Many early jazz performers owed a debt to minstrel traditions. At one point, it was even something of a critical success: in , it won the prestigious Golden Rose of Montreux. In May , for instance, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination submitted a petition calling for the show to be axed. There was at least one determined voice of opposition within the BBC.
The current protest has renewed the passions. The BBC says that the Black and White Minstrels is "a traditional show enjoyed by millions for what it offers in good-hearted family entertainment". I think it was George Melly's comment that the same was said of throwing Christians to the lions.
The black people represented here were irresponsible, laughable, and difficult to understand. If white people accepted these stereotypes, it became that much easier to deny African Americans the full rights of citizenship.
The first minstrel shows were performed in s New York by white performers with blackened faces most used burnt cork or shoe polish and tattered clothing who imitated and mimicked enslaved Africans on Southern plantations. These performances characterized blacks as lazy, ignorant, superstitious, hypersexual, and prone to thievery and cowardice. By , the popularity of the minstrel had spawned an entertainment subindustry, manufacturing songs and sheet music, makeup, costumes, as well as a ready-set of stereotypes upon which to build new performances.
Blackface performances grew particularly popular between the end of the Civil War and the turn-of-the century in Northern and Midwestern cities, where regular interaction with African Americans was limited. White racial animus grew following Emancipation when antebellum stereotypes collided with actual African Americans and their demands for full citizenship including the right to vote.
0コメント