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Blackface! - The History of Racist Blackface Stereotypes

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Blackface! The mask which the actor wears is apt to become his face -- Plato -- Blackface is more than just burnt cork applied as makeup. It is a style of entertainment based on racist Black stereotypes that began in minstrel shows and continues today. History of Blackface The stock characters of blackface minstrelsy have played a significant role in disseminating racist images, attitudes and perceptions worldwide. Every immigrant group was stereotyped on the music hall stage during the 19th Century, but the history of prejudice, hostility, and ignorance towards black people has insured a unique longevity to the stereotypes. White America's conceptions of Black entertainers were shaped by minstrelsy's mocking caricatures and for over one hundred years the belief that Blacks were racially and socially inferior was f
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Blackface and Minstrel Shows

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Blackface and Minstrel Shows "If I could have the nigger show back again in its pristine purity, I should have little use for opera." -- Mark Twain -- 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." -- Frederick Douglass -- Minstrelsy evolved from several different American entertainment traditions; the traveling circus, medicine shows, shivaree, Irish dance and music with African syncopated rhythms, musical halls and traveling theatre. The "father of American minstrelsy" was Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice (1808-60), who in 1828, in a New York City theatre, performed a song-and-dance routine in blackface and tattered clothes. Rice's character was based on a folk trickster persona named
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Blacks in Blackface

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  Blacks in Blackface Famous Black actors whose personas were derived from racist blackface stereotypes Eddie Anderson 1902-1977 "Rochester" The son of a minstrel singer and circus tightrope walker, Eddie Anderson started out in vaudeville and had appeared in a number of films when he debuted as the voice of a Pullman porter on Jack Benny's popular radio show in 1937. Louise Beavers 1902-1962 Louise Beavers appeared in over 160 films from the 1920s through the 1950s, most often as a mammy stereotype in the role of a maid, servant, or slave. Beavers' most famous role was her portrayal of Delilah Johnson, the housekeeper whose employer transforms her into an Aunt Jemima character for an advertising campaign in the 1934 film Imitation of Life. Willie Best 1913-1962 "Sleep 'n' Eat" Best was never given the opportunity to fully flex
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