The hidden history of blackface in America

Summary

---

Fresh Air: The Hidden History of Blackface in America

Host: Terry Gross
Guest: Raelynn Barnes, author of Darkology
Date: March 9, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode examines the largely hidden history of blackface in America, focusing on its spread through amateur minstrel shows. Terry Gross speaks with Raelynn Barnes, cultural historian and author of Darkology, about how blackface permeated American culture far beyond professional theater—into schools, fraternal clubs, politics and even government policy—and why so much of this history was purposely forgotten or omitted. The conversation highlights chilling throughlines from 19th-century minstrelsy to modern political rhetoric.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Blackface History Is So Hidden

• Despite the scandal surrounding blackface today, it was the most popular entertainment form in 19th- and early 20th-century America.
• The civil rights movement’s success in making blackface taboo led to its removal from cultural memory and education.
• Libraries and archives often failed to catalog blackface material during the Jim Crow era because, as Barnes notes, “it was just what was happening every day” (02:01).

2. Barriers to Accessing Blackface Archives

• Barnes describes difficulties accessing blackface-related books at the Library of Congress, including black librarians initially refusing to provide them due to their offensive content and the fear they could inspire racial violence if misused (03:23–06:06).
• Some materials had been intentionally hidden during the 1980s due to a Klan revival and concern about white supremacists reviving blackface for hate purposes.

“They turned blackface into something that was culturally taboo. And so it became so taboo, in fact, that the history of it is no longer taught.” (02:13, Raelynn Barnes)

3. Current Culture Wars Over History

• The conversation connects current political efforts to erase or sanitize Black American history to the long tradition of suppressing uncomfortable historical truths (07:05).
• Barnes frames it as a “patriotic duty” for historians to ensure Americans understand both the triumphs and the brutality of their past (07:55).

4. Origins of Blackface and the Jim Crow Character

• TD Rice, a struggling actor, created the Jim Crow character after seeing a disabled enslaved man in the 1830s and mimicking him on stage using blackface (09:50).
• Jim Crow became both a stage persona and the namesake for segregation laws.

“It explodes in New York City, becomes the number one entertainment form in the United States, and then it ricochets globally throughout the English-speaking world because of this obsession with this character, Jim Crow.” (11:29, Raelynn Barnes)

5. How Blackface Spread to Amateur Groups

• Technological advances like the printing press allowed for “how-to” guides on amateur minstrel performance (13:36).
• The term “darkology” was itself an insider term from these guidebooks.
• Performing blackface became common in schools, clubs, PTAs, military bases, and fraternal organizations.

6. The Elks Club and Political Power

• The Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks—founded by pro blackface performers—became a major vector for amateur blackface and wielded substantial political power (16:41–19:55).
• Funds raised (even for charity) often supported segregated institutions and pro-segregation candidates.

7. Stephen Foster’s Enduring Influence

• Foster wrote many parlor songs popularized in minstrel shows, such as “Oh! Susanna” and “Camptown Races,” reinforcing pro-slavery propaganda (20:39–25:39).
• These songs entered school curricula and became part of American cultural DNA—and public domain—largely due to federal backing during the Great Depression.

8. Government Support Through the WPA

• The Works Progress Administration (WPA) institutionalized blackface performance during the Depression, financially bailing out minstrel publishers and making their material central to school and community entertainment (26:24–29:17).
• Federal bureaucrats evaluated minstrel plays for their “patriotic” value before distributing them to schools nationwide.

9. FDR and Minstrelsy

• FDR not only oversaw the WPA’s support of blackface, but also organized minstrel shows for polio-stricken children in Warm Springs, Georgia (32:27–34:59).

10. The KKK, White Supremacy, and Blackface

• Throughout the 20th century, white supremacist groups—including the KKK—sought to preserve and revive blackface and minstrel culture through mail orders, publications, and organized performances (34:59–36:59).

“For most of the Jim Crow era, the Elks Club, the Rotary Club, any sort of professional organization are the same members and local leaders as the Klan.” (35:40, Raelynn Barnes)

11. “Make America Great Again”—A Minstrel Slogan

• Slogans like “Make America Great Again” have roots in minstrel show scripts, frequently used in pro-slavery, anti-black contexts (36:59–38:38).

12. The Role of Black Mothers in Ending Blackface in Schools

• Post-WWII black mothers, often part of the Great Migration, organized against blackface in school and community pageants (39:52–42:43).
• Led by activists like Betty Reed, they argued successfully—often legally—that such performances denied their children’s human rights, helping push blackface out of mainstream American life by the 1970s.

13. Legacy in Hollywood Classics

• Many beloved Hollywood films and stars, including Fred Astaire (“Swing Time”) and Judy Garland (“Babes in Arms”), performed in blackface.
• Barnes advocates for honest contextualization—not cancellation: “I think having conversations about what did these harmful stereotypes do... Not just in terms of demeaning and making fun of black people, but the economics behind it, how it helped fortify segregation. I absolutely support having those conversations in a meaningful way.” (44:06)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On why blackface performances vanished from schools:

  “Because blackface was federally sponsored and a part of the school curriculum, that there was very little difference between these caricatures against black Americans and the caricatures against Jews in Europe during Weimar Germany.” (41:57, Raelynn Barnes)

• On the insidiousness of minstrelsy:

  “You are no longer just being a consumer or viewer of minstrelsy, you... are embodying blackness as you find it funny. And so you’re taking ownership in these new characters, and that is what made it destructive.” (15:25, Raelynn Barnes)

• On the role of mothers in dismantling blackface culture:

  “By 1970, most of these publishing houses are going under because of the incredible work of black and white mothers...who said, 'I don't want my child performing this... This is not acceptable.’” (42:45, Raelynn Barnes)

• On connecting minstrelsy to current political rhetoric:

  “A lot of these terms that are—you could perhaps say—dog whistles in white supremacy are taken line for line from these minstrel shows.” (37:46, Raelynn Barnes)

---

Key Timestamps

• [02:01] — Why Blackface History Is Hidden
• [03:23–06:06] — Barriers to Accessing Archival Materials
• [07:05–07:55] — Current Efforts to Erase/Alter Black History
• [09:50–11:55] — Origin and Characterization of Jim Crow
• [13:36–16:21] — Spread of Amateur Blackface via How-To Guides
• [16:41–19:55] — Fraternal Organizations’ Role (Elks Club)
• [20:39–25:39] — Stephen Foster, Minstrel Songs, and School Curricula
• [26:24–29:19] — WPA's “Blackface Bailout” and Prevalence in Schools
• [32:27–34:59] — FDR’s Involvement with Minstrel Shows
• [34:59–36:59] — The Klan and White Supremacist Appropriation of Minstrelsy
• [36:59–38:38] — “Make America Great Again” and Minstrel Origins
• [39:52–42:43] — Black Mothers’ Advocacy and The End of School Blackface
• [43:10–44:57] — The Legacy of Blackface in Beloved Films and What To Do About It

---

Conclusion

Terry Gross and Raelynn Barnes uncover how deeply blackface, minstrelsy, and their racist tropes shaped American culture—not only through professional entertainment, but also through school curricula, community organizations, federal policy, and even present-day political language. The episode challenges listeners to confront these histories head-on, and consider meaningful ways to reckon with their persistent echoes in American life.

Transcript

[A]

This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive. For more. Capella University's Flexpath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella. Edu.

[B]

This is FRESH air. I'm Terry Gross. If you're a well known public person, whether you're a performer or a politician, if someone uncovers that you've worn blackface at a party or on stage or in a college fraternity, you're going viral every and it will be a scandal. But white people posing in a racist depiction of black people was much more popular than you might think. The new book Darkology uncovers the hidden history of blackface. My guest is the author Raylan Barnes. In the late 1800s, as professional minstrel shows were becoming obsolete, amateur blackface shows became one of the most popular forms of entertainment. And that's where Barnes focus is. Many groups like fraternal orders clubs, PTAs, police and firemen's associations, and soldiers on military bases put on their own blackface shows. FDR was a fan of minstrel shows and even co wrote a show to be performed by children who had polio, like he did during his presidency. He created the wpa, the Works Progress Administration, which provided jobs to millions of people during the Great Depression, but also provided minstrel sheet music to schools and helped fund minstrel productions. There's lots of surprising and disturbing history in Raelynn Barnes is an assistant professor of American cultural history at Princeton University and a fellow at the Hutchins center for African and African American Research at Harvard. She grew up in Orange County, California, an area where blackface thrived. Raelynn Barnes, welcome to FRESH air. Your book is really fascinating. Why is this history of amateur blackface so hidden?

[C]

Thank you so much for having me. So I think there's a few reasons that the history of blackface is so hidden. Ironically, it's a huge success of the civil rights movement. Civil rights activists protested against blackface and tried really hard to strip it from the school curriculums and everyday performances where it was really common currency. And by doing so, they turned blackface into something that was was culturally taboo. And so it became so taboo, in fact, that the history of it is no longer taught. But in terms of the material evidence, the story is more complicated. Blackface was the number one entertainment form in America in the 19th and 20th centuries. And when these materials were cataloged by libraries, it was at the height of Jim Crow America, Jim Crow being the name of the most famous blackface character Jim Crow libraries had no interest in cataloging and collecting white supremacist culture because that was the air that they breathed. It wasn't something that they felt needed to be protected and collected because it was just what was happening every day.

[B]

Well, something I found really interesting is that you went to libraries, to the Library of Congress, and there were at least two black librarians that didn't want you to see the blackface material that they had because they thought it was so offensive. What was your reaction to that? I was surprised to see that.

[C]

Yeah. So this was during the Obama administration, around 2013. And I had this really unique experience because the Library of Congress is the people's library. And so their responsibility. Responsibility is to try and protect and make pretty much any title that's ever been published in the United States available. And I kept calling different primary sources, and it kept coming up missing on shelf, item missing, missing on shelf. And I asked a librarian, what's going on? How can 70 or 80 books just be missing? And she took me aside, and she gave me almost an hour interview, for lack of a better word, trying to understand what did I want to do with this collection? What was I trying to understand? What were my intentions? And so I explained to her that I had been working on this for years and that I was trying to uncover this massive hidden history of white supremacy in America that had been culturally expressed. And she admitted to me that in 1987, she had personally hid some of these books, removing them from where they should be in the storage. Because in the 1980s, there was a Klan revival in Virginia. And with the sort of rise of Xerox and photocopying machines, a lot of Klans members and white supremacist publications that were thriving in the United states in the 1980s and 90s were trying really hard to revive blackface history and performances. And they understood it as important forms of. They called it white folk culture. And so she wanted to know what I was doing, Was I trying to do something nefarious with these materials? And once she understood the research I was doing, she was very proud of me. And a few hours later, she came up with a cart packed to the brim with all of the material that I had been hoping to see, you

[B]

know, at the Library of Congress, when you were initially denied access to the books about blackface and other documents, do you think you would have gotten a different reaction if you were black?

[C]

I'm not sure. So an interesting thing about blackface material and why it's censored. Is it's considered so taboo and so dangerous that even looking at it can do significant harm and damage when it's placed out of context. And so I know other black scholars who are working on this material who have also had trouble accessing this material. And that's part of why I had to ultimately create, in some ways, a new collection that was not being regulated. So I actually don't think that it was. That it was racially motivated. I think it was actually fear of the material itself.

[B]

You know, it's interesting that we're talking about this at a time when President Trump is basically trying to erase parts of history that he thinks don't positively reflect on America and patriotism. And, of course, everything that's, quote, woke up has got to go. And he's been like, you know, he and his administration have been ordering, like, taking down statues and commemorative plaques that recognize the harms of slavery, and he doesn't want textbooks to, you know, show the brutality of slavery. And, you know, it's very disturbing to see a president trying to erase black American history. I'm sure you're paying a lot of attention to that.

[C]

Absolutely. Historians right now are in somewhat of a culture war in that it is our patriotic duty as American citizens and as patriots to help make sure that the American public has access to our history in all of its complexity. And the truth is, is that you can't understand the victories and the triumphs without understanding how far Americans had to push. And I think. And I think that's especially true of blackface when we didn't adequately understand how long blackface was a mainstay in American culture, because many historians believe that it had died out by 1900, when, in fact, only accelerates and increases up through the 1970s. And so if you just say, oh, it just died out. It was no longer in fashion, then, what you're losing is the incredible, dangerous, and brave work of thousands of black and white mothers across the United states in the 1950s and the 1960s, of students who stood up during Jim Crow America and said, this is not okay. We are humans. We deserve dignity, and we want you to understand our history. But this, this is not our history. This is white supremacist history.

[B]

So let's talk about early blackface before it became amateur blackface. And let's start with Jim Crow, who is one of, like, the first blackface characters. And, you know, Jim Crow laws in the south after Reconstruction, that legally separated black people and white people. So those laws, Jim Crow, were named after this character. So tell us a little about how the character was portrayed.

[C]

Absolutely. Jim Crow is created by a failing actor named TD Rice. And he was in the Ohio River Valley, and he encounters an enslaved black man who went by the name Crow, who was incredibly disabled. A lot of descriptions go to great lengths in the 1830s to talk about how his shoulder was drawn up and how he had a leg that dragged. And he was singing a song as he worked in the stables and was dancing and dragging his leg. Because the truth is, is that most enslaved Americans did not get any or adequate medical care. And so TD Rice sees him and he thinks, ah, this is an interesting character. And so he goes back up to the Bowery in New York City, and he presents this new character that he performs in blackface using soot and burnt corks. So literally burning down corks from wine bottles, putting it on his face. And he performs the song J. Crow, which talks about wheeling about or spinning about in blackface. And the crowd went insane. This was largely an all white male audience, primarily laborers, working class people, a lot of Irish immigrants. And they rushed the stage and made him perform it again and again and again, and learned the dance beside TD Rice. And one thing that's fascinating is there's a painting in the museum of the City of New York of this moment. And it's always been held up as the moment when minstrelsy in blackface was born. And it explodes in New York City, becomes the number one entertainment form in the United States, and then it ricochets globally throughout the English speaking world because of this obsession with this character, Jim Crow. But when I look at the painting, I noticed because all of the people who had rushed the stage and were dancing alongside him. It's also the moment that amateur blackface is born, because Americans were so infatuated with this character that they wanted to know how to perform it as well.

[B]

What did the character look like?

[C]

The character was dressed like a stableman. He was wearing very tattered clothing, rags. And the black face would have been on his face, his arms, his feet, and he was wearing interesting sandals. One of the toes were ripped off of the right leg and the toe cap is ripped off. The character, Jim Crow is supposed to be incredibly submissive, bumbling, happy, go lucky, frolicking through the fields, and overjoyed to be enslaved. Because a white supremacist idea at the time was that slavery provided every need or want for an enslaved person, which obviously we know is a completely horrific interpretation of what slavery is. Jim Crow had a foil zip. They unfortunately, used a negative derogatory word that starts with a C. And so this zip character was supposed to be a blackface urban dandy. His clothing was always mismatched. He would get words wrong. He would try to be a black politician, a black abolitionist. Sometime he was portrayed as a black professor or a black doctor. Quite often than not, he was a black pastor. And so together you had this damned if you do, damned if you don't. Whether you were a representation of a black enslaved person who was in the American south and enslaved and happy to be enslaved, or if you had this free black person in the urban north who just could not assimilate or master American culture no matter what they did.

[B]

One of the things that helps spread the minstrel show is the printing press.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Because amateurs could learn how to be minstrels. There were leaflets that you could print to advertise your show, newspaper ads you could publish, and instructional how to books. So tell us what was in those instructional books? What were they teaching you that you needed to know to perform in blackface?

[C]

Yes. So in the 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, America has Americans on the move, whether that's to the gold rush, to the Mexican American war, and then especially the American Civil War. And the minstrels, who are these global superstars, realize we can't tour to all of these places where we have demand, but what we can do is use the new technology of rapid printing, of photography, of lithography, and write down explicitly how to step by step guides to perform blackface on your own. And this is really radical because before that, if you wanted to go to a minstrel show, you pretty much had to go to New York City or hope that they came to your town. And so you might see a show once a year. If you were outside of New York, if you were in New York, it might be a weekly part of your life. But now, suddenly, in these how to guides, that would tell you how to replicate stereotypes on your face, overdraw your lips, overdraw your eyes, they used made up nonsensical language that disturbingly, most Americans could understand and replicate because of just how pervasive minstrelsy was. And the title of the book, Darkology, comes from these books directly. And it meant the study of learning to try and represent black life in a humorous way from these printed how to guides. And so it was very much an insider term amongst the amateur and professional minstrels. And what is so horrifying about it is now you are no longer just being a consumer or Viewer of minstrelsy, you yourself, as a child, as a teacher, as a soldier, are reading these books, studying them, memorizing them, selecting jokes, selecting gags. And now you yourself are embodying blackness as you find it funny. And so you're taking ownership in these new characters, and that is what made it destructive.

[B]

The how to books also taught you how to apply blackface. It's like foundation makeup, you know, to match the coloring that you wanted.

[C]

It's an entire commercial empire. So Stein's makeup was one of the largest. They were a theatrical makeup company. And you'll actually find today when you go into Halloween stores, that a lot of these blackface makeup companies still exist today for Halloween costume makeup, and also for clown makeup.

[B]

Let's talk about how the Elks Club, which was one of those fraternal organizations, it was officially called the Benevolent and protective Order of the Elks. How did they become like a center and a major spreader of amateur blackface shows? And they were founded by professional blackface performers.

[A]

Correct.

[C]

So in the 1860s, right after the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln is assassinated in 1865. This is at the height of minstrel demand for blackface entertainment, Especially in the context of emancipation. There is no lack of desire for lampooning black life. But some local changes in New York having to do with alcohol laws, which and concert saloons, which is where minstrel shows performed, meant that blackface was incredibly under local municipal attack, because people would go to blackface shows, and they would get so out of control. And so the attempts to try and regulate alcohol during the Civil War and Reconstruction started impacting the finances of these global minstrel performers. And so they wanted to create a mutual aid society, much like a union today for actors and performers. So what happens is it becomes very clear as they're developing dozens and then hundreds of lodges, and they ultimately become the largest fraternal order in the United States, that they have incredible amount of political power and that you can use blackface privately to fundraise enormous amounts of money that can go not only to the expansion of lodges, but charity issues that individual lodges cared about. But of course. And that sounds good, right?

[B]

Great.

[C]

The Elks Club did do an enormous amount of fundraising for charity, but we have to remember that this is at the height of Jim Crow segregation. And so the money that they're donating, if it's donating to a hospital, to a library, to a school, it's a segregated library, hospital, or school. And they begin to use this network to put pro segregation politicians into power. And especially as they develop in the Sun Belt, you can see over the course of the 20th century, political power begins to shift westward, and a lot of that is mapped on along with where these fraternal lodges are developing. Because you might be a politician who can't openly say, yes, I'm forced, segregated. I am a white supremacist. But if you get the bulk of your finances for your campaign by running ads in a minstrel show, showing up at a minstrel show, you don't need to articulate what your opinions are on race relations. They are immediately clear to everybody who is in this closed, private environment.

[B]

Well, let's take a short break here. There's lots more to talk about. If you're just joining us, my guest is Raelynn Barnes, author of the new book Black and the American Way of Entertainment. We'll be right back. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH air.

[A]

If you're a super fan of FRESH Air with Terry Gross, we have exciting news. WHYY has launched a FRESH AIR Society, a leadership group dedicated to ensuring Fresh Air's legacy for over 50 years. This program has brought you fascinating interviews with favorite authors, artists, actors and more. As a member of the FRESH AIR Society, you'll receive special benefits and recognition. Learn more at whyy.org Fresh AirSociety let's

[B]

talk about Stephen Foster, because he wrote the most famous songs that were used in blackface minstrel shows and became songs in a lot of, like, school curricula and in the military during World War II. And sheet music was the way songs were spread before radio and recordings. They became an important part of parlor songs. And that parlor songs was before music could be disseminated through means other than live. People bought sheet music. People who could afford it had a piano in the parlor, and musical entertainment was sitting around the piano. Someone would play it and everyone would sing. So the songs had to be in a register that was easy for regular people to sing, and they had to have, you know, fairly simple lyrics. And Stephen Foster wrote a lot of parlor songs, and some of them were sweet, and some of them were about pining for, you know, for the south and for the cotton fields. I mean, he was from the North.

[C]

Pittsburgh.

[B]

Yeah. And then he lived in New York City.

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

So how did he start writing these songs? Did he write them with the intent of them being used for minstrel shows?

[C]

So he grew up in Pittsburgh. He was a struggling songwriter. He was incredibly impoverished. And you're correct that he then relocates to the Bowery. He's writing music in the Five Points, where you just have this explosion of nightly music. And the Five Points at the time was very interracially mixed. And he gets these contracts with different minstrel bands who request that he writes songs for them. And I think unquestionably, the most famous is oh, Susanna. And a lot of the songs that you mention are hyper sentimental songs. And so what Stephen Foster was doing was imagining the south and these hyper sentimental black narrators. Most of the songs are sung from the point of view of an enslaved person in blackface on stage. And when we think of oh, Susannah today, most people think of it as a Western song. But when you read the lyrics, it is a horrifying and disturbing song. Most of these songs use the N word throughout them, and it's romantic.

[B]

That was scrubbed by the time I was growing up.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Not the song, but the N word.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

And the opening line is, I come from Alabama with my banjo on my knee. I never quite understood the song or its popularity.

[C]

Yeah. So it was thought of as a Western song. Thinking that this was a gold miner. That's how it's been remembered in school curriculum, that it's a gold miner who went to California and they're missing their true love. But what the song is actually about is the internal slave trade. An enslaved man coming from Alabama who has been sold to Louisiana. So going deeper south, further down the Mississippi river, into far more dangerous territory. Right. So this is sugar cane with a banjo on my knee. So there's enormous amount of enslaved artisans and musicians. And that's what the minstrel performers are imitating. The banjo is an African American instrument in its truest sense, derived from African inspirations. So most enslaved music was string based. And the same is true for minstrel shows. And so Stephen Foster's music was originally written for the fiddle, which essentially is a violin. It's just how you play it or the guitar. And that's also part of why it translates so well into folk music and the folk revival in the 20th century. Other songs are Camptown Races. And so these are the DNA of American songwriting, I would say you have Stephen Foster and you have Hank Williams when it comes to classic, simple lyrics that inspired generations in terms of white music.

[B]

Yeah. It's so interesting. I grew up with some of these songs.

[C]

I did, too.

[B]

And we had to sing them in school. Yeah. And then perform them for parents.

[C]

And I'm assuming this was a white majority class.

[B]

Oh, yeah, it was completely white. I mean, the diversity in the class was Italian, Polish, Jewish, but it was completely white. I don't think there was a black person in the school. And so I realize now I was in a child whiteface minstrel show when I was growing up.

[C]

Yeah. And what's interesting about those songs is they are romanticizing the relationship between an enslaved person and their enslaver. And so when we have commentary even from the president now, who recently said slavery wasn't so bad. Well, slavery was horrific. But if you were raised on a diet of Stephen Foster music and going to minstrel shows, you can somewhat understand how somebody at the time could easily be led to believe that slavery was a grand old party, because that's what it was supposed to be telling you. It's pro slavery propaganda.

[B]

I want to ask you about the Works Progress Administration. The wpa.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And this was a very progressive idea to create an administration during the Great Depression that would basically pay laborers, writers, theater companies, and keep them alive during a time when everybody was going broke. You know, it was hard to live, hard to survive. But the WPA also had a branch that was devoted to disseminating music and, you know, to helping theaters. So what role did the WPA play in disseminating minstrel songs to schools?

[C]

It is an amazing concept when you think about it, putting millions of Americans to work in terms of architecture, music, dance, et cetera, painting. It was a segregated organization. And what you're talking about is what I term basically a blackface bailout that happened during the Great Depression. So all of those publishing companies that started in the late 19th century and continued to rise in popularity through the Great Depression were under financial strain. And FDR and the Works Progress Administration, one of their main goals was not just to put people back to work, but to preserve American heritage. And so they felt that it would be critical to not let blackface die. And some of the reasons that they were concerned it was going to die was not just financial. It was also the rise of American radio and cinema. And blackface is critical to the birth of both radio, television, and film. And so what the federal government does is they buy out these 79 publishing houses, and they also create a blackface bureau where you have bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. whose entire job all day long is to evaluate blackface, how to minstrel guides and shows for children and Americans, and decide if they're funny, if they're witty. But most importantly, are they patriotic? Do they capture some unique essence about America? And then they would distribute lists recommending the top minstrel plays to schools that they recommended. Yes, to schools to local charities, to colleges. And so these are rubber stamped by the federal government as the most apt representations of American culture that you should revive locally.

[B]

And that included a lot of Stephen Foster songs.

[C]

Yes. So what's fascinating is because they purchased up all of the sheet music in these publishing houses, Stephen Foster music, and all of this material goes into public domain. And that's the critical key to why it becomes a part of the curriculum. The WPA also had a wing for historians, and they were tasked with coming up with state guides and also state curriculum for every single state and identifying what are the songs, the plays, the paintings that every American should know. And Stephen Foster is the top of that list.

[B]

I am wondering if the music appreciation teacher that I had in fifth or sixth grade learned these songs as part of the curriculum when she was growing up.

[C]

I can guarantee it, really.

[B]

You know, all the teachers in my school, except one were older women. And in assembly we had to learn like Camptown Races and like, I know a lot of the minstrel songs and minstrel publishing companies and minstrel performers were from New York. But still growing up in Brooklyn and having to sing Camptown Races or any of these songs, like Longing for the south, make no sense, especially when, you know your grandparents are from London, like Jewish people from Eastern Europe, you know.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

You're wondering, why am I learning these songs make no sense?

[C]

I think one of the most interesting examples of that that I found was actually rock and roll star John Fogarty. He was born six weeks after Roosevelt died in 1945 in Berkeley, California. His mom was a schoolteacher. She was a schoolteacher in these war defense industries. Her name was Lucille. And one of his most vivid childhood memories is that she gave him a record made by his Stephen Foster, and he said it was like a lightning bolt to his brain. And when you listen to all of his songs, they have this twangy swamp rock sound and are also these strange imaginings of the American south, although he himself, like Stephen Foster, never lived in the South. So he's learning this Southern iconography through Stephen Foster through Berkeley via Pittsburgh and the WPA because his mom, as a teacher was given that curriculum.

[B]

We have to take another break, so I'm going to reintroduce you again. If you're just joining us, my guest is Raelyn Barnes, author of the new book Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment. We'll be right back. This is FRESH air.

[A]

If you're a super fan of FRESH AIR with Terry Gross, we have exciting news. WHYY has launched a Fresh Air Society, a leadership group dedicated to ensuring Fresh Air's legacy. For over 50 years, this program has brought you fascinating interviews with favorite authors, artists, actors, and more. As a member of the Fresh Air Society, you'll receive special benefits and recognition. Learn more at why.orgfresh airsociety I want

[B]

to get to FDR because he was a fan of minstrel shows. He saw minstrel shows when he was in Warm Springs. What state was that in?

[C]

Georgia.

[B]

In Georgia. Okay. And Warm Springs, it was literally like springs of water that were warm. And a lot of people with polio would go there thinking that it was therapeutic to swim in warm water, which was the reason that FDR moved there. And he built a little, like, Little White House so he could spend a lot of time there and still, you know, run the presidency. So. So he saw minstrel shows there, and he even wrote one. Would you explain why he wrote one? He co wrote one, yes.

[C]

So Franklin D. Roosevelt, our longest serving president, four terms during the Great Depression and World War II, is responsible for federalizing minstrelsy during the Great Depression and then also overseeing its distribution to the troops in World War II. And you're correct, he loved to go to Warm Springs in Georgia, which he founded as a polio ward. And the show that you're referencing happened in 1945, in April, at the height of World War II. So things are really turning around in Europe. We're not quite yet to the atomic bombs, which will happen in August of 1945, and during Easter week. Roosevelt is incredibly ill. Everybody there is very concerned. And to pep him up, he decided that he wanted a minstrel show. And the reason that he loved minstrelsy, beyond the fact that he loved what some of his friends called the corny songs of minstrelsy, was that going back to our conversation about Jim Crow, Jim Crow was a disabled character. And so there was a belief in the 1940s stemming from Minstrelsy's ties to medical shows and emerging ideas of therapeutic medicine, that children with polio could actually perform Jim Crow superior to the average performer. And what Roosevelt liked about this is it took children who were incredibly shunned and normally hidden from society and allowed them to go on stage in a way that was celebrated in the 1940s, a way that would horrify us today.

[B]

So we've been talking about the history of blackface, especially in amateur groups and fraternal organizations, but at some point, the KKK starts using them, the Ku Klux Klan, and talk about how the stereotypes, the horrible stereotypes of blackface were used and all the literature accompanying it were used by the Klan and other white supremacist groups.

[C]

Yeah. So a hard thing, I think, for us to understand today is for most of the Jim Crow era, the Elks Club, the Rotary Club, any sort of professional organization are the same members and local leaders as the Klan. I think the most troubling thing in modern America in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, one of the ways that white supremacist groups explode and organize is through nationalized print media. So these would be mailing lists or magazines that you would sign up for via subscription. And they're very vocal about how they want to revive the minstrel show. And they keep track very closely of when Stephen Foster lyrics are changed, when the N word is removed, when Stephen Foster or blackface songs are no longer allowed to be used as stage anthems, as college anthems. And they very much see that as an attack not just on white supremacy, but American culture itself.

[B]

You write that the slogan maga, make America great again was a slogan in minstrel shows from the 1930s through the 60s.

[C]

Yes. So make America great again or this is our country or take back our country are all slogans and songs that were very common in minstrel shows. And so a lot of minstrel shows reinterpreted slavery in a fantastical way, that the Civil War ended and that in these minstrel shows, there was black rule and that everything white America held dear was desecrated. And so this zip character that I had mentioned, he has different names that he goes by, runs for office, political office, becomes president, and he's the first black president. And the first thing he does is he takes away America's guns. Sound familiar? And so a lot of these terms that are. You could perhaps say dog whistles in white supremacy are taken line for line from these minstrel shows. And you can track that these songs and these plays are reproduced decade after decade. And so suddenly, you have children in the 1950s and the 1960s performing song and plays and jokes word for word, that are actually coming out of antebellum America and these nativist white supremacist ideologies. And so there's a direct through line in this continuation, culturally, of these jokes and these slogans and these sayings.

[B]

Well, we have to take another break, so I'm going to reintroduce you again. If you're just joining us, my guest is Raelyn Barnes, Author of the new book Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment. We'll be right back. This is FRESH air. Support for FRESH AIR comes from whyy,

[C]

presenting the Pulse, a weekly podcast about health and science.

[B]

Each episode is full of great stories

[C]

and big ideas fueled by curiosity and wonder. Can you learn to listen to your intuition?

[B]

What should electric cars sound like?

[C]

Why can it be so hard to

[B]

get an accurate diagnosis? How do fungi communicate? Check out the Pulse, available where you get your podcast. So blackface starts to really end. You know, amateur blackface during the civil rights movement because of black mothers. And these are largely mothers who were part of the black migration who moved north from the south and whose husbands had come back from fighting in World War II and were really angry that that they fought to save Europe, to save America. And they come home and they're still second class citizens. So tell us what these mothers did.

[C]

So a lot of these mothers, as you say, are part of the Great Migration, and they too, served in the war. They were on the home front. They were Black Rosie the Riveters. And these black mothers and fathers believed in the Double victory campaign, which meant freedom abroad and freedom domestically. And they believed that with their whole heart that they were truly fighting to make America better and the world better. So fast forward to the 1950s, and these families now have baby boomer children. They are experiencing the height of post war America and they're trying to buy homes. They're founding businesses. And one of the families that I look at is the Reed family. And so they had served in World War II. Betty Reed was a black Rosie the Riveter. And all they dreamed about was they owned a black record store and they wanted to build a home in the Bay Area. And so Betty Reed, who had just integrated this neighborhood and her son integrated Parkmead elementary, is horrified to discover that the first thing that her son is supposed to witness is is a blackface show put on by the school principal and the pta. And the show that they're doing is actually one of the shows that was recommended by the wpa, written and created by the wpa, called Weep no More, which is from a Stephen Foster song. And so these black mothers decide through various means that they need to organize to stop this, because they understand, rightfully so, that the five fight against lynching, against desegregation, voting rights, all comes down to an issue of dehumanization. And that that is what minstrelsy is. It is a mass dehumanization and caricature of black life. They work with the naacp. They bring in lawyers who had just worked in the Nuremberg trials, and they Use the newly created universal human rights that very clearly states that part of what it means to be a human and to have rights is to have access to education but also access to the arts. And these black mothers argue with the NAACP in courtrooms, in schools, in PTA meetings that their human rights are being violated and that because blackface was federally sponsored and a part of the school curriculum, that there was very little difference between these caricatures against black Americans and the caricatures against Jews in Europe during Weimar Germany.

[B]

So how successful were these mothers?

[C]

Tremendously successful. And by 1970, most of these publishing houses are going under because of the incredible work of black and white mothers who worked with them. There were a lot of Jewish American mothers who were concerned by this, but also people who were moved by the civil rights movement who said, I don't want my child performing this and I don't want to perform this. This is not acceptable.

[B]

So, you know, there are films I really like that. I'm horrified. There are blackface scenes in it, including Swing Time. You know, Fred Astaire sings Bojangles of Harlem in blackface and has, like, the outfit of, you know, the post Jim Crow blackface characters. Judy Garland had, you know, in her early career in the 1930s, performed in blackface. Yeah.

[C]

Babes in Arms, multiple shows with Mickey Rooney that uses blackface.

[B]

What are we to do with that? I mean, do you think those films should be canceled? Do you think a disclaimer should be used? Which it sometimes is, you know, like TMC for a while, started having people on, like, describing why the film was important, yet there's, you know, blackface in it, or what would you like to see happen? How do we deal with.

[C]

With it, Swing Time, Judy Garland? I mean, this is the history of American culture. And so I think having conversations about what did these harmful stereotypes do? How were they actually powerful? Not just in terms of demeaning and making fun of black people, but the economics behind it, how it helped helped fortify segregation. I absolutely support having those conversations in a meaningful way. If you're just slapping a label on it, that probably isn't very sufficient. But I think these are the hard conversations Americans actually want to have. And I think America is completely ready for those hard conversations and moving forward.

[B]

Well, Raelynn Barnes, thank you so much for writing this book. It's really quite enlightening.

[C]

Thank you so much.

[B]

Raelynn Barnes is the author of the new book Darkology. Tomorrow on FRESH air, the author of Black Single Mother, Jamilah Lemieux, tells us why she once thought single motherhood was a fate just slightly worse than death. But in her new book, she writes about the complicated, ordinary beauty of raising a child on your own. Blending her story with those of other single mothers, Lemieux is a writer and cultural critic. I hope you'll join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram P R Fresh air Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Stanischewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers and Reboldenon Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yukundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

[A]

This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive for more. Capella University's flexpath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Us learn more at Capella Eduardo.