In the 1830s, America’s first minstrel shows debuted on the New York stage. Claiming to mimic the speech, style, and behavior of enslaved Africans within idyllic plantation settings, minstrel shows presented a stereotyped and often derogatory collection of song, dance, and comedy. They were largely performed by white performers in blackface. From the nineteenth century into the early twentieth, the American minstrel show was the most popular form of American entertainment. With the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, millions of enslaved African Americans were liberated from bondage. This freedom allowed them to define themselves and their communities economically, socially, and artistically.

During the post-Civil War era, black performers struggled with the dual burden of seeking paying roles in entertainment and presenting the black community with dignity. Minstrelsy was still a prominent form of entertainment in the early twentieth century. Black performers like Bert Williams and Ernest Hogan entered the space only to modernize and update it. They served as a bridge between the minstrel show and the growing popularity of vaudeville, an increasingly popular form of theater that included musical, dance, and comedic acts. Black stage entertainers like Williams and Hogan could blacken their faces, sing, and perform comedy revolving around ill-fated schemes. But they also introduced performances which added a greater humanity into their characters. Productions by black producers like Bert Williams could also include discussions of anti-colonialism in Africa and critiques against further development of Jim Crow laws. This political critique was disguised as comedy for largely white audiences. These performances gave African Americans a fullness not often seen when white actors sought to “depict” African Americans in blackface.

Alongside the growing presence of black vaudevillians and stage performers, jazz musicians from across the South were embraced by white audiences as the Jazz Age commenced in the early twentieth century. During and after World War I, dance crazes made black jazz bands and stars like Louis Armstrong popular with white, urban audiences. However, the stage served as a vehicle for segregation, with white dancers on the floor and black musicians on the stage. Growing acceptability of black vaudevillians and jazz greats ultimately converged with African American musical and theatrical performance on the radio, newly popular in the 1920s. Radio performances could not be visible to the majority of the American listenership, though big cities did often record before a live studio audience. But recognizable voices which emerged from the vaudeville stage or famed dancehalls later transitioned to serve as some of the first African American stars on the big screen.

Still, just as early vaudevillians labored to humanize African American characters on the Broadway stage, early stars of the big screen often found themselves struggling to move beyond stereotypical roles that hinted at minstrelsy. During the 1930s, Hollywood made African American movie stars, some of whom maintained traditional stereotypes of the dedicated but at times simple-minded servant. These included Will “Bojangles” Robinson, Stepin Fetchit, Hattie McDaniel, and Butterfly McQueen. Their positions in these roles stood as a reincarnation of pre–Civil War understandings of African Americans. Such stereotypes were often critiqued by civil rights organizations and increasingly vocal black audiences.

 Radio hits like Amos ’n’ Andy and Beulah were quickly greenlighted to transition onto America’s new televisions in the 1950s. Both of these shows revolved around either the constant folly of black male characters or the domestic subservience of black female characters. These tropes extended beyond the radio and onto the motion pictures. Actresses like McDaniel and McQueen gained incredible popularity for their regular roles as simple maids in white households on both the big screen and later on television. But between the 1940s and 1960s a shift occurred in the popular black image on the stage and the big and small screen. Beginning during World War II, black GIs and a politically awakened black homefront demanded more dimensional characters. These included such raving beauties as Lena Horne and Hazel Scott as well as intellectual theater presences like Paul Robeson. The rise of these stars echoed efforts from the turn of the twentieth century to infuse a balance of entertainment with the need for black dignity in American popular culture.