Blackface Minstrelsy shows were popular from the early 19th century to the early 20th century. The shows consisted of the comic enactment of racial stereotypes. Minstrelsy shows imitated African American music, culture, physical traits, way of speaking and many more. Blackface minstrelsy shows also consisted of white actors and sometimes even African American actors painting their face black to impersonate African American actors.
The first blackface performances can be traced back as far as the 1600s of William Shakespeare “Othello”. At the time black people were not allowed to perform on stage and had limited rights in Europe. In America however, since 1769, Lewis Hallam Jr portrayed a drunken black man in the play The Padlock.
Minstrelsy
