America’s long embrace of ‘blackface’

Rhae Lynn Barnes

The Washington Post

Through most of American history, said Rhae Lynn Barnes, wearing blackface was so commonplace that scores of U.S. presidents, business leaders, and college frats regarded it as “all-American fun.” As a historian who’s studied blackface minstrelsy, I was not at all surprised to see the photo of a man in blackface and a second man dressed as a Klansman on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s yearbook page. “Blacking up” with burnt cork or makeup and affecting “darky dialect” originated in the 1830s, but remained a widespread activity late into the 20th century. It was considered so inoffensive among white people that many presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan were enthusiastic audiences of blackface shows. During the Jim Crow era, from 1880 to the 1950s, minstrel shows were performed “in nearly every city and town in the U.S.” Virtually every college yearbook I’ve examined from that era contained blackface images. By depicting “darkies” as bumbling, stupid, obsequious caricatures, these images taught generations of Americans that blacks were inferior. Blackface may now be verboten, “but the truth is, it’s hard to look anywhere without seeing its vestiges.”