What is a Minstrel Show?
The minstrel show was an American entertainment of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface (painting of the face to have black features and coloring) or, especially after the Civil War, even black people in blackface.
Minstrel shows showed black people as dim-witted, lazy, dumb,superstitious, happy-go-lucky, and musical. The minstrel show began with brief burlesques and comic shows between acts in the early 1830s and emerged as a full-fledged form in the next decade.
Minstrel shows often involved early forms of tap dancing to depict the African Americans primative ways to express themselves.
Minstrel shows showed black people as dim-witted, lazy, dumb,superstitious, happy-go-lucky, and musical. The minstrel show began with brief burlesques and comic shows between acts in the early 1830s and emerged as a full-fledged form in the next decade.
Minstrel shows often involved early forms of tap dancing to depict the African Americans primative ways to express themselves.
Actors in 1950 portraying what blackface was like.
Famous Blackface Minstrel Actors:
Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice
Rice was a white performer and playwright who used African American vernacular speech, song, and dance to become one of the most popular minstrel show entertainers of his time. Though his act drew made aspects of African American culture popular, Rice’s “Jim Crow” character was meant to flatter the idea of white superiority.