Editing Blackface (section)

=== Black performers in blackface ===
[[File:Hotmikado.jpg|left|thumb|upright|A poster for the 1939 [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] show ''[[The Hot Mikado (1939 production)|The Hot Mikado]]'' using blackface imagery]]

==== 19th century ====
By 1840, black performers also were performing in blackface makeup. [[Frederick Douglass]] generally abhorred blackface and was one of the first people to write against the institution of blackface minstrelsy, condemning it as racist in nature, with inauthentic, northern, white origins.<ref>Granville Ganter, [https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-113646013 "He made us laugh some": Frederick Douglass's humor] {{dead link|date=July 2021}} originally published in ''African American Review'', December 22, 2003.</ref> Douglass did, however, maintain: "It is something to be gained when the colored man in any form can appear before a white audience."<ref>Frederick Douglass, [http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/minstrel/miar03at.html Gavitt's Original Ethiopian Serenaders], originally published in ''The North Star'' (Rochester), June 29, 1849. Online in Stephen Railton, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and American Culture, University of Virginia. Accessed online January 31, 2008.</ref>

When all-black minstrel shows began to proliferate in the 1860s, they often were billed as "authentic" and "the real thing". These "colored minstrels"<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|p=199}}.</ref> always claimed to be recently freed slaves (doubtlessly many were, but most were not)<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|pp=198, 236–37}}.</ref> and were widely seen as authentic. This presumption of authenticity could be a bit of a trap, with white audiences seeing them more like "animals in a zoo"<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|p=206}}.</ref> than skilled performers. Despite often smaller budgets and smaller venues, their public appeal sometimes rivaled that of white minstrel troupes. In March 1866, Booker and Clayton's Georgia Minstrels may have been the country's most popular troupe, and were certainly among the most critically acclaimed.<ref name="autogenerated4">{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|p=205}}.</ref>

These "colored" troupes&nbsp;– many using the name "Georgia Minstrels"<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|p=203}}.</ref>&nbsp;– focused on "plantation" material, rather than the more explicit social commentary (and more nastily racist stereotyping) found in portrayals of northern black people.<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|pp=179, 198}}.</ref> In the execution of authentic black music and the [[percussion instrument|percussive]], [[polyrhythm]]ic tradition of ''[[Juba dance|pattin' Juba]]'', when the only [[musical instrument|instruments]] performers used were their hands and feet, clapping and slapping their bodies and shuffling and stomping their feet, black troupes particularly excelled. One of the most successful black minstrel companies was [[Sam Hague]]'s Slave Troupe of Georgia Minstrels, managed by [[Charles Hicks]]. This company eventually was taken over by [[Charles Callender|Charles Callendar]]. The Georgia Minstrels toured the United States and abroad and later became [[J. H. Haverly|Haverly's Colored Minstrels]].<ref name="autogenerated4" />

From the mid-1870s, as white blackface minstrelsy became increasingly lavish and moved away from "Negro subjects", black troupes took the opposite tack.<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|p=234}}.</ref> The popularity of the [[Fisk Jubilee Singers]] and other ''jubilee singers'' had demonstrated northern white interest in white religious music as sung by black people, especially [[spirituals]]. Some jubilee troupes pitched themselves as quasi-minstrels and even incorporated minstrel songs; meanwhile, blackface troupes began to adopt first jubilee material and then a broader range of southern black religious material. Within a few years, the word "jubilee", originally used by the Fisk Jubilee Singers to set themselves apart from blackface minstrels and to emphasize the religious character of their music, became little more than a synonym for "plantation" material.<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|pp=236–37, 244}}.</ref> Where the jubilee singers tried to "clean up" Southern black religion for white consumption, blackface performers exaggerated its more exotic aspects.<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|p=243}}.</ref>

African-American blackface productions also contained buffoonery and comedy, by way of self-parody. In the early days of African-American involvement in theatrical performance, black people could not perform without blackface makeup, regardless of how dark-skinned they were. The 1860s "colored" troupes violated this convention for a time: the comedy-oriented endmen "corked up", but the other performers "astonished" commentators by the diversity of their hues.<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|p=200}}.</ref> Still, their performances were largely in accord with established blackface stereotypes.<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|p=180}}.</ref>

These black performers became stars within the broad African-American community, but were largely ignored or condemned by the [[African-American upper class|black bourgeoisie]]. [[James Monroe Trotter]] &nbsp;– a middle-class African American who had contempt for their "disgusting caricaturing" but admired their "highly musical culture"&nbsp;– wrote in 1882 that "few ... who condemned black minstrels for giving 'aid and comfort to the enemy'" had ever seen them perform.<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|pp=226–28}}, including the quotation from Trotter.</ref> Unlike white audiences, black audiences presumably always recognized blackface performance as caricature, but took pleasure in seeing their own culture observed and reflected, much as they would half a century later in the performances of [[Moms Mabley]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|pp=258–59}}.</ref>

Despite reinforcing racist stereotypes, blackface minstrelsy was a practical and often relatively lucrative livelihood when compared to the menial labor to which most black people were relegated. Owing to the discrimination of the day, "corking (or blacking) up" provided an often singular opportunity for African-American musicians, actors, and dancers to practice their crafts.<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|p=195}}.</ref> Some minstrel shows, particularly when performing outside the South, also managed subtly to poke fun at the racist attitudes and double standards of white society or champion the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] cause. It was through blackface performers, white and black, that the richness and exuberance of [[African-American music]], humor, and dance first reached mainstream, white audiences in the U.S. and abroad.<ref name="Watkins 82" /> It was through blackface minstrelsy that African American performers first entered the mainstream of American show business.<ref>{{Harvnb|Toll|1974|p=228}}.</ref> Black performers used blackface performance to satirize white behavior. It was also a forum for the sexual [[double entendre]] gags that were frowned upon by white moralists. There was often a subtle message behind the outrageous vaudeville routines:

{{blockquote|The laughter that cascaded out of the seats was directed parenthetically toward those in America who allowed themselves to imagine that such 'nigger' showtime was in any way respective of the way we live or thought about ourselves in the real world.<ref name=fox>{{cite book |last=Fox |first=Ted |title=Showtime at the Apollo |location=Rhinebeck, NY |publisher=Mill Road Enterprises |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-9723700-1-1 |id={{OCLC|680471611|54084944|9393699}} |orig-year=1983|hdl=2027/uc1.32106017681500 }} {{subscription required}}</ref>{{Rp|5, 92–92, 1983 ed.}}}}

[[File:Bert Williams blackface 2.jpg|thumb|right|[[Bert Williams]] was the only black member of the [[Ziegfeld Follies]] when he joined them in 1910. Shown here in blackface, he was the highest-paid African American entertainer of his day.<ref name="autogenerated3">{{Harvnb|Strausbaugh|2007|p=136}}.</ref>]]

==== 20th century ====
With the rise of vaudeville, [[The Bahamas|Bahamian]]-born actor and comedian [[Bert Williams]] became [[Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.|Florenz Ziegfeld]]'s highest-paid star and only African American star.<ref name="autogenerated3" /><ref>{{cite news|author-link=Margo Jefferson|first=Margo|last=Jefferson|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/13/arts/music/13vaud.html |title=Blackface Master Echoes in Hip-Hop|newspaper=The New York Times|date= October 13, 2004|access-date= February 2, 2008}}</ref>

In the [[Theatre Owners Booking Association|Theater Owners Booking Association]] (TOBA), an all-black vaudeville circuit organized in 1909, blackface acts were a popular staple. Called "Toby" for short, performers also nicknamed it "Tough on Black Actors" (or, variously, "Artists" or "Asses"), because earnings were so meager. Still, TOBA headliners like [[Tim Moore (comedian)|Tim Moore]] and Johnny Hudgins could make a very good living, and even for lesser players, TOBA provided fairly steady, more desirable work than generally was available elsewhere. Blackface served as a springboard for hundreds of artists and entertainers&nbsp;– black and white&nbsp;– many of whom later would go on to find work in other performance traditions. For example, one of the most famous stars of Haverly's European Minstrels was Sam Lucas, who became known as the "Grand Old Man of the [[Negro]] Stage".<ref>Johnson (1968). ''Black Manhattan'', p. 90. Quoted in {{Harvnb|Toll|1974|p=218}}.</ref> Lucas later played the title role in the 1914 cinematic production of [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]]'s ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''.

From the early 1930s to the late 1940s, New York City's famous [[Apollo Theater]] in [[Harlem]] featured skits in which almost all black male performers wore the blackface makeup and huge white painted lips, despite protests that it was degrading from the NAACP. The comics said they felt "naked" without it.<ref name=fox />{{rp|4, 1983 ed.}}

The minstrel show was appropriated by the black performer from the original white shows, but only in its general form. Black people took over the form and made it their own. The professionalism of performance came from black theater. Some argue that the black minstrels gave the shows vitality and humor that the white shows never had. As the black social critic [[Amiri Baraka|LeRoi Jones]] has written:

{{blockquote|It is essential to realize that ... the idea of white men imitating, or caricaturing, what they consider certain generic characteristics of the black man's life in America is important if only because of the Negro's reaction to it. (And it is the Negro's ''reaction'' to America, first white and then black and white America, that I consider to have made him such a unique member of this society.)<ref name=leroy /> }}

The black minstrel performer was not only poking fun at himself but in a more profound way, he was poking fun at the white man. The [[cakewalk]] is caricaturing white customs, while white theater companies attempted to satirize the cakewalk as a black dance. Again, as LeRoi Jones notes:

{{blockquote|If the cakewalk is a Negro dance caricaturing certain white customs, what is that dance when, say, a white theater company attempts to satirize it as a Negro dance? I find the idea of white minstrels in blackface satirizing a dance satirizing themselves a remarkable kind of irony&nbsp;– which, I suppose is the whole point of minstrel shows.<ref name=leroy>{{cite book|first= Leroy|last= Jones|title= Blues People: The Negro Experience in White America and the Music that Developed from It|publisher= TMorrow Quill Paperbacks|year= 1963|location= NY|pages= [https://archive.org/details/bluespeoplenegroexp00bara/page/85 85–86]|isbn= 978-0-688-18474-2|url= https://archive.org/details/bluespeoplenegroexp00bara/page/85}}</ref> }}