164 Culture, Identity, and Community: From Slavery to the Presentminstrel shows. One of the most popular shows in early
radio was Amos and Andy, a comedy show where two white
men voiced black characters drawn from the minstrel tra-
dition. Early producers of mass-produced food products
populated their labels with fi gures such as Aunt Jemima
and Uncle Ben, carryovers from the blackface tradition.
Blackface played a central part in landmark fi lms of the
early 20th century; white performers in blackface are cen-
tral features of movies such as D. W. Griffi th’s Th e Birth of
a Nation and Al Jolson’s Th e Jazz Singer; blackface routines
appeared regularly in Hollywood fi lms as late as 1954 (no-
tably, in the classic White Christmas).
Equally indicative of the infl uence of minstrelsy, roles
played by African Americans throughout the mid-20th
century on the stage, in fi lms, and on the radio were com-
monly drawn from stereotypes from the blackface tradi-
tion. At one point, African American actor Bert Williams
was one of the highest-paid performers in the Ziegfeld
Follies, but the role he played (generally in blackface) was
one derived from the minstrel tradition. Hattie McDaniel
was the fi rst African American to win an Academy Award
(1940), but it was for playing the role of Mammy in the fi lm
Gone With the Wind, a character closely connected to the
blackface tradition. Th e fi rst television shows that featured
African American characters where Beulah (starring Hattie
McDaniel as the housekeeper for a white family) and Amos
and Andy (starring Alvin Childress and Spencer Williams,
two African American actors playing the characters origi-
nating from the earlier radio show). Although the actors
playing these roles brought their very real talent to bear, the
roles were undeniably tied to characters rooted in blackface
minstrelsy.
During the fi rst half of the century, the traditional
minstrel show experienced a second life through countless
amateur productions. Classic scripts and routines from
the 19th century were mainstays for church bazaars, com-
munity theater, and school productions throughout the
country. But by the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s,
blackface minstrelsy was generally a stigmatized form,
though stereotypes born from the tradition persist.
In the 2000 satire Bamboozled, fi lmmaker Spike Lee
directly addressed the legacy of blackface minstrelsy in
American culture. Th e plot follows the exploits of a black
man who works as a writer for a major television net-
work. Having had no luck drawing an audience for showsblack fi gures amused parlor-dwelling Americans and eased
middle-class uncertainty by marking the woeful extremes
of social failure. Unchecked and unchallenged for decades,
these images informed and infl uenced attitudes about black
identity by importing devastatingly racist ideology into the
American home in the guise of harmless entertainment.
Still, there were some ways black characters did fi gure
into idyllic and nostalgic domestic scenes. Consider such
pieces as “Old Uncle Ned,” “Th e Old Piney Woods,” or
“Carry Me Back to Old Virginny”—songs that are among
the most enduring melodies from the minstrel stage. In
songs such at these, black characters are depicted tenderly,
even lovingly, as they pine away for lost homes or absent
loved ones. But in the songs, almost without exception, im-
ages of home in domestic peace are confl ated with mythic
plantation life—that happier time and place where the now
world-weary black characters had supposedly led carefree
lives under the tender care of their kindly white masters.
Th e cover art oft en depicts woeful black fi gures who cast
their longing gazes at gracious plantation scenes that seem
to shimmer in the distance. Th e dynamic was also repro-
duced in sheet music covers and melodies that depict white
families who have lost their beloved slaves—the dear “aunts”
and “uncles” who once graced the family circle. In both situ-
ations, the domestic ideal could be realized for black fi gures,
not through their own autonomous family ties but rather
through fi lling their defi ned role in the completion of the
idyllic domestic scenes of their white masters. Th e message is
that blacks can be upstanding, dignifi ed, and loyal, but only
when brought into the perfecting orbit of the white fam-
ily circle—that the idealized domestic atmosphere of white
American families can even serve to domesticate blacks and
tame their otherwise wild and unruly temperaments.
Although vaudeville would eclipse the minstrel show
in the late 19th century, minstrel performance would con-
tinue to play a part in the form of virulently racist coon
songs. Commonly performed by whites in blackface (but
occasionally performed by African Americans), these rou-
tines presented unabashedly racist depictions of blacks as
violent, oversexed, shift less, and ignorant. Th is image of
blacks as buff oons, braggarts, and brawlers was the distil-
lation of minstrelsy’s half-century of cultural slander and
misrepresentation. Minstrelsy also played a role in many
of the evolving modes of mass media. Some of Th omas
Edison’s earliest recordings for the phonograph were of