the.com/minstrelsy
america's original entertainment industry, built by white performers blacking up to mock the people they enslaved.
means a 19th-century stage show genre where white performers wore blackface to perform racist caricatures of black life as comedy and music.
from emerged in 1830s new york, credited to thomas d. rice, who watched a black stable hand's song and dance and turned it into the blackface character jim crow, spawning a national craze.
jim crowthe laws took their name from this stage character.
al jolsonperformed blackface minstrelsy into the 1920s films.
peak popularityamerica's most popular entertainment form for decades.
black performerslater forced into blackface minstrelsy themselves to work.
for instance
jim crow rice — thomas rice's 1830 character launched the entire genre.
christy minstrels — 1840s troupe standardized the three-part minstrel show format.
the jazz singer — 1927 film, al jolson performs in blackface.
bamboozled — spike lee's 2000 film satirizing minstrelsy's afterlife on tv.