MINSTRELSY
Blackface, early musical theater, Jim Crow-era “popular” music.
Origins: Early to mid-19th century.
BOOKS
- Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America by Robert C. Toll, 1977.
- Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class by Eric Lott, 1993. ︎
- Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy, Ed. by Brooks McNamara, Mel Watkins, 1996.
- Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop by W. T. Lhamon, Jr., 2000.
- Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889-1895 by Lynn Abbott, Doug Seroff, 2003.
- Blackface Cuba, 1840-1895 by Jill Lane, 2005.
- Babylon Girls: Black Women Performers and the Shaping of the Modern by Jayna Brown, 2008.
- Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway, and the Story of America's First Black Star by Camille F. Forbes, 2010. ︎
- Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop by Jake Austen and Yuval Taylor, 2012.
- The Creolization of American Culture: William Sidney Mount and the Roots of Blackface Minstrelsy by Jeremy C. Smith, 2013.
- Ring Shout, Wheel About: The Racial Politics of Music and Dance in North American Slavery by Katrina Dyonne Thompson, 2014.︎
- Blackface Nation: Race, Reform, and Identity in American Popular Music, 1812-1925 by Brian Roberts, 2017. ︎
- The Blackface Minstrel Show in Mass Media: 20th Century Performances on Radio, Records, Film & Television by Tim Brooks, 2019.
- Exporting Jim Crow: Blackface Minstrelsy in South Africa and Beyond by Chinua Thelwell, 2020.
- Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib, March 2021.︎
ARTICLES
- Library of Congress’ Entry on Minstrel songs.
- Blackface Minstrelsy: American Experience Transcript by PBS.
- “Can American Popular Vocal Music Escape the Legacy of Blackface Minstrelsy?” by Lee B. Brown, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 71, No. 1, 2013.
- “Recall That Ice Cream Truck Song? We Have Unpleasant News For You” by Theodore R. Johnson, III, NPR Code Switch, 2014.
- Follow-up: “Talking About Race And Ice Cream Leaves A Sour Taste For Some” by Theodore R. Johnson, III, NPR Code Switch, 2014.
- “On Blackface, Bert Williams, and Excellence” by Danielle Jackson, Longreads, October 2018.
- “Blackface and Hollywood: From Al Jolson to Judy Garland to Dave Chappelle” by Seth Abramovitch, THR, February 2019.
- “Race, Blacksound, and the (Re)Making of Musicological Discourse” by Matthew D. Morrison, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 72 Issue 3, Fall 2019.
- “Racial Representation in Popular Songs and Recordings of 1901” by Tim Brooks & Bill Doggett, ARSC Journal, Vol. 50, No. 2, Fall 2019.
FILMS & SERIES
FILMS & SERIES
- Bamboozled by Spike Lee, 2000. 2hr 16 mins.
- Companion Piece: “Spike Lee’s Bamboozled Is Still Sharp, Stinging, and Utterly Vital” by K. Austin Collins, Vanity Fair, March 2020.
- “Explaining Blackface” by PBS’ Basic Black, 2019. 26 mins.
-
"Sam Lucas" by Sandra Graham, American Music Educational Project, 2019. 30m.
PODCASTS & RADIO
- “267: The Faces of Racism: A History of Blackface and Minstrelsy in American Culture” by BackStory, 35 mins, February 2019.
- “From Blackface To Blackfishing” by NPR’s Code Switch, 28 mins, February 2019.
- “Song of the South” Series by You Must Remember This, November 2019.
- Recommended Episode 148: “‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,’ Minstrels in Hollywood and the Oscars,” 50m.