All language subtitles for David.Harewood.on.Blackface.2023.1080p.WEBRip.x264-CBFM

This programme contains
discriminatory language and content.

What is it about white actors
putting on make-up to play black
characters?

Scenes like these are usually edited
out if the movies are shown on TV.

Others have been gathering dust
on shelves.

On a sweltering summer's day,

I've come to the
British Film Institute,

where they are digitising their
Victorian collection.

Until now, this is one of the few
places it was possible to see

an art form that was once

mainstream British popular culture.

This bit that we're seeing here,
just before the mention of,

sort of, mass cinema.

As you can see, they're all
in blackface and, you know,

doing all these sort of slapstick,
goofy routines.

You can see how widely spread these
blackface routines already are.

You can see that,
with the invention of mass cinema,

that this thing is
just going to take off.

And take off it did.

By the time I was growing up
in Birmingham, in the '60s and '70s,

blackface minstrelsy was everywhere.

At the seaside, on the stage,

and in our living room,

every Saturday night on TV.

# You can tell at a glance

# What a swell night this is... #

At its peak, the BBC's

Black And White Minstrel Show

was watched by audiences
of over 20 million people,

until it was finally scrapped
in 1978.

APPLAUSE

I'm embarking on a journey to
investigate where the show came from

and how it became so central
to British culture.

The history of blackface minstrelsy
is hidden.

It has been shelved
and put out of sight

because the subject is too difficult
or too uncomfortable

for people to face.

To help me uncover
this lost lineage,

I'm going to be working
with historians...

Of all the things I've ever studied
as an historian,

I thought I was looking
at something quite small.

And it gets bigger and bigger,

and the rabbit hole goes
deeper and deeper.

..looking at the effect blackface
may have had on my own career,

and on those of fellow actors...

I met a critic
who loves the theatre.

But I told him, "Oh, my next project
is going to be Othello."

And he went, "Oh-oh, really?

"You don't seem like an Othello
to me."

..and trying to understand
the deeper psychological impact

this may have had on myself
and others.

I mean, this is extraordinary.

This was on TV when we were kids.

I hadn't even formed my OWN...

..idea of my black identity.

FANFARE PLAYS

APPLAUSE

Ladies and gentlemen, it's
The Black And White Minstrel Show!

# Hey, you! Are you from Dixie?

# Yes, I'm from Dixie

# Where the fields of cotton,
they beckon to me

# We're glad to see ya

# Tell me, how be ya?
We're OK! #

As a child,
I remember watching that.

I just knew instinctively
that it was wrong.

# If they made me a king

# I'd be but a slave to you... #

And here I am as an adult, and
I've done all this work on myself

over the last couple of years,

on mental health and trying to dig
deeper into my own insecurities

and vulnerabilities concerning race

and who I am.

# When you croon

# Yes, croon a little tune

# From your heart

# Of Dixie... #

And I look at that, and I just see,

there's a very complex thing
that's going on there,

sort of being sold this image
of happy black faces

singing about Mason-Dixon Line...

# The Mason-Dixon Line... #

..Mississippi and Tennessee -
when really, in reality,

those were some of the worst states
to be black.

# I'm down to be in D-I-X

# I don't know how ya spell it,
but I'm going

# Yes, I'm going to my home
in Dixieland... #

And it's deeply confusing for me
even now, and I'm...

VOICE BREAKS: ..a bit upset
about it.

But...

# Bring on the wonderful men... #

You know,
I think of what was going on in

my younger self, watching that.

# Mammy
I'm coming

# Mammy, I'm coming... #

And a lot of people will think
this is just harmless fun.

And for many years, people did,
I'm sure,

think this was harmless fun.

# Mammy, I'm coming... #

There's something deeply poisonous
about it,

when you strip away
the entertainment side of it.

# Mammy, look at me... #

In fact, I don't think
you CAN divorce the entertainment

side of it, because that's what is
so pernicious about it.

It is a deeply offensive,
racist construct

made into entertainment.

# Mammy! #

APPLAUSE

CHATTER

To try and understand
how something so strange

could have been seen as normal
for so long,

I'm going to have to dig
into its historical roots.

I know these roots reach back
around 200 years

to the era of American slavery.

So, it's not going to be
an easy task.

Many would rather
this story be forgotten,

and much of it has been airbrushed
out of history.

The enduring success and popularity
of blackface minstrelsy

in both America and Britain

can be traced back to just one man.

Thomas Dartmouth Rice,

an American playwright and performer
in the 1830s.

# Eb'ry time I weel about
I jump Jim Crow! #

Rice applied burnt cork
to blacken his face

and performed onstage as Jim Crow -

a buffoonish enslaved man

dressed in raggedy clothing
and worn-out shoes.

Apparently, he was inspired
by...ragamuffin black person

that he saw.

And the story goes that he was
so inspired by this character

that he sort of bought his clothes,
blacked up his face,

and sort of became
this black person,

and started singing and telling
stories, and writing plays

as this character, Jim Crow.

And it just became wildly popular.

In 1833,
Thomas Dartmouth Rice made $7,000

playing Jim Crow on Broadway.

In the same year,
the governor of New York

made just $4,000.

But that didn't mean
Dartmouth Rice had made it.

Any 19th-century artist who wanted
to make it big

couldn't just stay in America.

They had to take advantage
of the biggest global market

in entertainment that there was,
which was right here in Britain.

So, in 1836, Thomas Dartmouth Rice
came to make it big

in the West End.

In the 1830s, before the invention
of the movies,

theatre was king.

And the situation was the reverse
of what it is today.

The West End of London and Paris
were the entertainment capitals

of the world -

not Hollywood or Broadway.

Renee Landell has studied the impact
of Thomas D Rice's trip to London.

His music was electric.

His lyrics to his songs were
infectious.

His dancing was eccentric.

He used African-American
vernacular speech,

which garnered much laughter.

People loved all that stuff.
They LOVED that stuff.

You know, it's...

And it relates to the idea
that black people are something

to be laughed at, almost, you know?

The entertainers then?
The entertainment, you know,

built to serve white people,

built to entertain white audiences.

There was one particular song
called Jump Jim Crow.

Oh, can you...?
And I actually have the lyrics here.

Fantastic, fantastic.

So, "Weel about and turn about
and do jis so,

"Eb'ry time I weel about
and jump Jim Crow."

# ..And do jis so

# Eb'ry time I weel about
I jump Jim Crow... #

So I'm just wondering, you know,
where's the line between it

being entertainment, and where
it being intentionally racist was?

Hmm. Well, the line has
completely blurred.

And I think that's probably one
of the most dangerous things

about this style of performance,
you know?

It's entertainment,
so it's something that we enjoy.

And in that enjoyment, in that
performance, it becomes sort of a...

..you become oblivious to, you know,
the certain tropes that are

steeped into this subliminally.

Renee has got a review
of one of Rice's early

performances in London.

So, this is an article which was
published in the Times in...

..on the 26th of October, in 1836,
and I'll just read.

"His personation is
the beau ideal of a negro.

"He has the faculty of twisting
his limbs in such a manner

"as to represent distortions
of an ill-grown African.

"And the very tibia of his legs
appear to shape themselves

"in aid of his endeavours.

This is the Times basically saying
that Dartmouth Rice's performance

as a black man was so realistic,

that it's believable.

Yes.

And, in many ways, the audiences
believed this to be true

of black people.

You know, we're seeing
the buffoonish dancing, you know,

the...exaggerated songs
and, you know, actions.

And they believed this to be true
characteristics of black people.

I guess that's what makes it
so dangerous, as well, is that

if you're...saying that it's,
kind of, you know,

black people are buffoonish,
cartoonish simpletons,

kind of, happy to, kind of...

You know, this whole "mammy" thing,
and you're taking the conversation

away from the horrors of what most
black people at the time

were actually suffering under,

the system that they were suffering
under.

Just three years before Rice arrived
in London,

the British Government passed
the act that abolished slavery.

At the time,
there were 800,000 enslaved Africans

under British rule,

in the Caribbean and other colonies
around the world.

But America,
heavily dependent on slave labour

on its southern plantations,
lagged behind.

It would take another 30 years
and a bloody civil war

before America caught up
and emancipated the enslaved.

I've discovered that Rice had
an overtly political agenda

in bringing minstrelsy
from America to Britain.

So, I've found this article
in an American newspaper,

the Baltimore Sun,
from 9th of November, 1837.

It's basically a rave review of
one of Thomas Rice's performances

as Jim Crow.

But it's also a record of a speech
Rice gave to the audience

at the end of that performance.

It says, "Before I went to England,

"the British people were
excessively ignorant regarding

" 'our free institutions,' "

which I think he means slavery.

"They were under the impression
that negroes were naturally equal

"to the whites, and their degraded
condition was consequent

"entirely on our 'institutions' " -
slavery.

"I effectively proved
that negroes are essentially

"an inferior species of
the human family,

"and they ought to remain slaves."

So, he basically says
he took his act to England

to teach the Brits that actually,
they were wrong about slavery

and that negroes, black people were
actually better off being slaves,

because they're simple and inferior.

Whatever his motives,
Rice's extraordinary success bred

a host of imitators,

and Jim Crow would be joined onstage

by other racially stereotyped
characters.

One of the earliest and
most influential acts

were the Virginia Minstrels.

In the early 1840s,
they performed in New York.

And in May 1843,
like Thomas D Rice before them,

they crossed the Atlantic
to see if they could make it big

in the West End of London.

I found a review of one of the
earliest performances of

the Virginia Minstrels at the
Adelphi Theatre, in West London.

And I have to say, this underlines
just how much we are living

in a very different era
to the one we're living now.

I have to warn you that, you know,

I can't tell this story without,
you know, delving into

the widespread language
that they were using at the time.

So, I'm not sure how I feel about
this, but I'm going to give it a go.

It says, "Four genuine
Virginia minstrels,

"who sing their peculiar melodies,
accompanying themselves on

"the banjo, fiddle, and tambourine.

"The effect is exceedingly
odd and amusing.

"The present rage for niggers
came in,

"we opine, with the abolition bill,
and if the abolitionists do

"but patronise the present
personators of

"their favourite proteges,

"the Virginia Minstrels will make
no bad thing of it.

So, what he's basically saying is
that, you know,

the present rage for...
black people came in with, er,

what we say,
with the abolition bill.

And if the people who were pushing
for abolition - or the liberals -

if they come and see this show,
they'll be happy with their work.

I'm now going to the
Guildhall School of Music and Drama,

where I'm meeting up with the head
of acting, Dr David Linton.

He's made an in-depth study
of blackface minstrelsy,

including troupes
like the Virginia Minstrels.

How did you become interested
in minstrelsy?

As a black British actor,

I was always interested in

the representation of black people.

Mm. So, I started to look, and the
area where I found black performers

was in the late 19th century,

and that's when I came across
blackface minstrelsy. Right.

And then, you start to understand
that the performance of blackness

has, for a long time,
been the control of white people.

In a sense, you went looking
for black performers

and found minstrelsy, which is
really, really extraordinary.

Tell me about the sort of things
that you started to uncover?

These performances, they're
connected to the end of slavery.

The emergence of blackface
minstrelsy is very connected in

the dominant group trying to remain
in control of the narrative. Mm.

So, they're controlling
how black people are...

Perceived? ..perceived in society.
Mm.

And that, again, if you're not
meeting a lot of black people,

if your only introduction to black
people is through these stories,

erm, that's very, very serious.

And the legacy of that is
still with us in many ways,

because a lot of those stereotypes -

black people, good dancers,

yeah, natural rhythm...
Urban, street. ..street.

All of those narratives
and stereotypes are here with us,

and we are not addressing
that history.

It's quite frightening.

I guess these Virginia Minstrels,

it seems as though the whole
art form seemed to be condensed

or solidified in this form
of performance.

It becomes black spectacle
on the stage.

It's popular. Originally,
you had solo performances in terms

of Rice and others.

But what the Virginia Minstrels
and the other minstrel troupes

that start to perform at this time,

again, they're producing spectacle
onstage,

and it becomes more grotesque,

and it's more of a musical...
comic extravaganza that starts

to happen and take place.

The Virginia Minstrels were the
first to put four performers onstage

and offer
an entire evening's entertainment.

They were also the first
to popularise the classic

minstrel combination
of banjo, fiddle, tambourine,

and bone castanets.

The format,
very much of a minstrelsy show,

consisted of music, singing,
dancing, comic sketches, skits.

For the first time,
you get music-hall variety format.

The music hall... The minstrelsy
would be sort of in three parts.

So you'd have the regulation,
which is the opening.

So, they would be sat around in
a semicircle traditionally.

And the two endmen -
Mr Bones, Mr Tambo -

would be literally at the end,
either end,

and in the middle would be
the interlocutor,

who was actually not in blackface.

He's white. He's white.

Hm. He's in control.

You know, he's the straight man. Mm.

And at the beginning of the show,

there would be a series
of quickfire one-liners.

The second bit would be
a series of sketches, of songs.

And that would then be followed
by what we call a walk-around,

where the members of the chorus,
or of the group would then

walk around the stage.

From these formatted minstrel shows,

certain stereotype characters
emerged

and became the stock in trade.

There's the Jim Crow figure,

the ragamuffin plantation worker,

the dandy
who dresses above his station

and has a high opinion of himself,

and the Mammy -

an overweight, maternal,
but cantankerous black woman.

This is the original Jim Crow.

And his depiction of blackness is
a rural depiction.

They're attacking both
the rural and the...

or mocking the rural blackness.

One of the strongest is Zip Coon.

Again, these are derogatory,
mocking representations.

Zip Coon is a character who is seen
as pretentious.

He's seen as a laughable,

joking character who is lazy,

concerned about his appearance,

dresses very flamboyantly,

but in the wrong clothes.

So, in a way,
it's mocking his intelligence.

Right. And it's grotesque.

It's a grotesque depiction
of blackness.

And what's interesting here is,
for black people,

clothes are very important,
coming out of slavery... Of course.

..because when you became enslaved,

you were stripped
of all your possessions.

So, clothing is very important
as an expression of self. Mm.

So, it's already -
they're already trying

to de-legitimize... Absolutely.

..the construction
of a black identity,

whether it be somebody
who likes his clothing,

someone who likes to speak well,

somebody who likes
to display intelligence.

Absolutely.

And these racialized stereotypes
of black people were about to be

disseminated even further
into American and British society

when another minstrel troupe took
the format one step further.

The Ethiopian Serenaders purged
their shows

of some of the cruder humour,

smartened up their costumes,
and called their shows concerts.

After performing on the New York
stage in 1844, the Serenaders

performed to John Tyler at the White
House, as part

of the Especial Amusement Of
The President Of The United States,

His Family, And Friends.

When they too travelled to England
a couple of years later,

they were invited to perform
for Queen Victoria and

the Duke of Wellington,
at Arundel Castle.

At a theatre in London's West End,

I'm meeting up
with Professor David Olusoga,

who I've worked with before.

He studied the history
of blackface minstrelsy,

and he's got some archival documents
he wants to show me.

I have to warn you once again -
in telling this story,

we have no choice
but to use toxic racial language.

In fact, minstrelsy was
a major delivery system of it

into British culture.

So, this is a collection
of newspaper reports from 1847,

from the month of June,

and all of them mention minstrelsy
performances in British theatres.

What they show is
that minstrelsy's everywhere.

Now, 1847 is about more
than a decade since

Britain abolished slavery,

but it's also more than a decade
since minstrelsy came to Britain.

This is the
Salisbury And Winchester Journal.

And that tells us that in Poole,
on the 4th of June,

we have the Lantum Ethiopian
Serenaders who are giving

"two concerts consisting
of negro airs and melodies

"at the Guildhall."

And, because this is 1847,

we also have a very important
minstrel troupe,

the Ethiopians Serenaders,
who are touring the country.

So, there's a report here about
the original Ethiopian Serenaders,

who were also performing.

Let's see what's happening
on the 6th of June.

Liverpool Amphitheatre,

the Buffalo Gals have been putting
on a stage performance,

which has been
"a sterling attraction".

12th of June, 1847,

the Halifax Guardian tells us
that the New Orleans

Ethiopian Serenaders performing

and they will give
"inimitable entertainment,

"illustrative of negro life
and character".

So, this is them basically saying,
"This is what negroes are."

Illustrative of negro
not just life, but character.

So, this is racial impersonation so
that not only are you entertained,

you're educated about the true...

About the true nature of negroes.

Yeah, yeah.

A week later, 19th of June,
the West Kent Guardian tells us

the Ethiopian Melodists
are performing for lovers

of... N-word songs. Yeah.

24th of June,
in leafy Tunbridge Wells,

the Female American Serenaders
are performing at

the Royal Assembly Rooms
in the Sussex Hotel.

So, this is the Era newspaper,
it's a short-lived London newspaper,

and it has a really quite long
account from the 27th of June

of a performance for Mr Pell,

the bones player
of the Ethiopian Serenaders.

Now, it's a benefit gig,
which means that all the money

from the performance goes to him.

And this is a sort of retrospective,
a look back at the history of

minstrelsy in Britain, and it says,

"Rice, from America, first
introduced an awakened taste

"among the British public
for 'n-word' music."

So, it's going back to
Thomas D Rice coming in the 1830s.

So, wait, sorry to interrupt,
but, I mean, they call it...

..nigger music.

They use the n-word all the time.

It is in half of this report.

It is unthinking. It is just casual.

The name of this genre of music is
n-word music.

And there is no concern, no
difficulty in describing this. Mm.

But what's also, I think,
fascinating here is that they are

very conscious of the idea that
what they've done is they've taken

a form of music that they think is
primitive from the people

that they think are primitive,

and that they've synthesised it
in a way that's perfect.

They say, "It remained for
the Ethiopian Serenaders to bring

"to 'n-word music', perfection,"

and that this essence of this form
of music has been captured

by the Ethiopian Serenaders,

who "have contrived to elevate
the most primitive style of musical

"execution and composition
to an art, a profession,

"and almost a fashion".

So, they've taken black people's
music and...

..simplistic, primitive,
though they claim it is,

these white people have been able
to elevate it to the status

of an art... Of an art form. ..and a
profession

that black people couldn't possibly
have done themselves.

So, this is not just impersonation.

This is not just, you know,
the appropriation of black culture.

This is the claim
that these white people in blackface

have perfected black culture.

That's the dangerous thing!

That it's actually, they are
actually the, sort of,

the purveyors of black culture.

Yeah. And this is everywhere.

I really, really hadn't considered
that.

That, how much this is seeping
into the public...mind,

the general public's understanding
of what black people are,

and are capable of.

It's just running wild. Yeah.

David has also unearthed
a rare piece of film

that he wants to show me.

It provides an extraordinary
snapshot of blackface minstrelsy

in Britain 50 years
after those newspaper reports.

We're in London of 1896. Mm-hm.

Up there, on Regent Street,
the Lumiere brothers have turned up

with their new invention of cinema.

They've got a temporary cinema
that they've set up,

but they haven't got any film.

Get out and film something
interesting.

And these guys just happen to be
here on the street? Yeah, yeah.

And here, where these cars are,

he stumbles across the scene
that we're going to see.

David has arranged for the film
to be projected onto a wall

in the very spot where it was filmed

more than 120 years ago.

Wow!

Wow!

These guys were just on the street?

This is a group of late Victorian
blackface minstrels.

So, these are white guys blacked up.

I mean, they're standing here.

I mean, I slightly feel
like I'm walking through ghosts.

I mean, they are...
they're right here.

Oh, look, here they go,
here they go!

And they are performing.
Two of them playing banjos,

one of them playing a pennywhistle,
one them playing guitar.

The thing to remember is
this is 1896.

Thomas D Rice came to this city
in 1836.

By this point, in the 1890s,

this is really familiar.

But if you think about it, these are
working-class white Londoners.

Now, we know from Henry Mayhew and
other people who interviewed people

who were blackface minstrels,
that these aren't rich guys.

There's not much money in this.

These are men who are impersonating
people of another race...

Completely. ..in a country
that they're never going to go to.

And that's their job.
Did nobody ever question this?

There were a handful
of black abolitionists.

There were people who saw
through this and saw that this was

an engine for stereotypes.

But this is kind of going with the
flow of an idea that black people

are either savages in Africa,

or they're happy-go-lucky simpletons
in America.

When I look at this piece of film,
I look at those children.

So, let's say they were born
around 1890.

Let's hope they survived the two
World Wars that are coming. Mm-hm.

These little boys,
they're going to be old men

in the middle of the 1960s.

They are going to be in their 50s
when the Windrush arrives.

And this is the image
of who black people are

that they're given as children.

Exactly. That's what's so dangerous
about this stuff to me.

You know, I used to think
it was kind of benign,

just maybe people thought
it was harmless.

When you look into it,

this is...this is putting ideas
into generations

of white Britons' minds.

And it does it in a way
that I don't think any politician

or any theorist could do.

I mean, the people who invented
racism, the slave owners and

the racial scientists, now,
they could write their books,

but no-one really read their books.
Mm.

This is how you transmit
to millions and millions of people

ideas about who people are,
what they're like.

This is how you generate
stereotypes.

This is how you convince people
that another people

just aren't like them.

It's art - and art's not sort of
like a cherry on the cake of life.

Art really IS life.

And this is racism
literally made into an art form.

I mean, this is extraordinary.

This was on TV when we were kids.
Yeah.

I hadn't even formed my OWN...
idea of my black identity!

I was, you know,
there were no black people on TV

when I was growing up, hardly any!

Yet these guys were on TV.

I'm sitting here thinking, "What?!"

So, Thomas D has really done
a number on us.

And, with the invention of
the movie camera,

blackface minstrelsy is going
to make the leap from

being a Victorian art form

to a very 20th-century one.

Soon, some of the biggest names
in Hollywood

will be getting in on the act,

blacking up to perform in
the sort of films that are usually

shown on TV at Christmas.

When they are shown these days,

the blackface sequences are usually
edited out.

But I believe it's important to look
at this and scrutinise

what was really going on.

For instance,
in the movie Swing Time,

Fred Astaire blacks up to play
Mr Bojangles of Harlem,

which was a character actually
created by black actor

and performer Bill Robinson.

Here, you've got
a fabulous performer, dancer.

He's still kind of using
the, sort of, this hands,

this sort of pleading, kind of,
mammy-type stuff.

Minstrelsy exaggerates
and diminishes black people

to these happy sort of smiling
buffoons.

And here, we see Hollywood happy
to embrace that,

and one of its biggest stars
sort of playing up to it,

and seemingly enjoying it.

I just, again, it just underlines
how dangerous it is,

because it's being sold
as harmless fun.

And it's really...it's poisonous.

I mean, I'm shocked by seeing it.

That's the first time
I've seen Fred Astaire,

you know, like that.

And it sort of immediately makes me
question...

..all of his performances.

Next, please!

# Swing low... #

Two years later, one of
Hollywood's most famous stars

blacked up to play the character
of Topsy

from Uncle Tom's Cabin.

# Coming for to carry me home... #

It's sort of bizarre because, again,

you see one of the biggest stars
of Hollywood in blackface,

doing the same movements.

# From way down... #

Judy Garland was still a teenager.

# Where the corn and taters
used to grow... #

It's a recognised style,
but its depiction of blackness

is just...it's shocking to me.

# Way down south in Dixie... #

The year after this film was
released,

Garland starred
in The Wizard Of Oz as Dorothy,

the girl next door
from rural Kansas.

To see someone who I presume
as being sweet, innocent, talented.

# Uncle Tom's Cabin's got
a new routine

# Rides cross the ice in a limousine

# While Simon Legree shakes
his tambourine

# Way down south in Dixie... #

It's Dorothy. And this is
obviously - it's '30s in America?

So, this is pre-Civil Rights.

So you can imagine
there's already a groundswell of...

..of opinion that this is wrong.

I think we got something there!
I'm sure we have.

# And carry me home... #

Brava! Brava!

# Upon a February morn

# A tiny baby boy was born

# Abraham... #

And in the early '40s,

an even bigger Hollywood star
blacked up to perform

a musical number
about Abraham Lincoln.

# Folks all called him
Honest Abe... #

And, yes, that IS Bing Crosby.

Every white performer in the scene
is in blackface,

and the only black actor
to be included,

a Mammy character and her children,

are sidelined offstage.

# When black folks lived in slavery

# Who was it set the darkie free?

# Abraham!

# That's right, child, Abraham... #

DAVID SIGHS

I mean, I'm...

I'm just, like, looking around.

Obviously, the band are
all in blackface.

The butlers are all in blackface.

And my heart kind of goes out
to that one black woman

and the young black kids
who are on set that day,

doing their little number.

What on earth what must that
have been like,

to see this sort of parade of
white people blacked up,

doing this minstrelsy thing?

And obviously, she had to...

She gotta pay her rent, right?

# Abraham... #

From the late Victorian period
onward,

black actors were often co-opted
into blackface performances.

And not all the famous faces
touched by the tradition

of blackface minstrelsy were human.

I've been looking at this book,
Birth Of An Industry:

Blackface Minstrelsy And
The Rise Of American Animation,

and it talks about the links between
minstrelsy and animation...

I owns ya!

Body and soul!

..and how animation is sort of rife
with minstrel tropes.

And I had never really thought
about it before.

But now that I see the image
on the front cover of this book,

you can kind of see...

..that there are sort of

elements of minstrelsy in animation.

So, it's going to be really
interesting

to talk to the writer of the book,

Nicholas Sammond, who's on
the other end of this Zoom call.

Ah, there he is.

So, Nicholas, perhaps tell me
a little bit more about

how animation was sort of inspired
by minstrelsy.

I'd be happy to. I mean, actually,
I would say that animation is

an outgrowth, or a new version
of minstrelsy,

rather than inspired by it.

These characters were, in effect,
minstrels who rebelled,

um, and perhaps the most famous
of these, early - before Mickey -

would have been Felix the Cat,

who was himself based on a character
named Sammy Johnson,

who was based on Little Black Sambo.

And Felix was an enormous star.

He was a star on the order of
Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton.

Dumbo, the ninth wonder
of the universe,

the world's only flying elephant!

CROWS LAUGH

Did you ever see an elephant fly?

Well, I've seen a horsefly.

Ha! I've seen a dragonfly.

I've seen a housefly.

LAUGHTER

Now, here's one question.
I know that in Dumbo,

the blackbirds,
when they sing that...

I mean that, as a kid,
that was my favourite...

It's one of my favourite ever bits
of animation.

# I seen a peanut stand,
heard a rubber band

# I seen a needle
that winked its eye

# But I be done seen
about everything

# When I see an elephant fly. #

Would you consider that
as minstrelsy?

First off, I think
it's a great song.

It is! It's really clever, because
it's about, it's in the tradition

of minstrelsy, where you purposely
play with language and the meaning

of language to indicate
its slipperiness

and its flexibility.

The lead crow in that song
is named Jim Crow.

# But I be done seen
about everything

# When I see an elephant fly. #

But I didn't know that!

And the animator who did it,
Dick Huemer, didn't think

it was racist at all

and, to his dying day, said
that the choir loved doing it,

it's not racist.

You know, what can I tell you?

Dumbo goes off to have a great life.

The crows end up sitting
on the wire watching him go,

having done their work
as essentially magical negroes.

Going back to Mickey Mouse...

I do remember seeing a cartoon
where he sort of lit

the dynamite
and then his face went black.

Was he intentionally,
overtly a minstrel?

He was never overtly a minstrel.

He was simply modelled on other
characters that were minstrels.

And so you had this kind of
doubling down on the minstrelsy

in Mickey's Mellerdrammer, which is
the cartoon you're talking about,

where he takes a stick of dynamite,

sticks it in his mouth
and blows himself black,

which is something that Warner
Brothers would use again...

Again and again and again, yeah.

This idea of actually humiliating
a character by blackening them,

by hurting them
and then blackening them.

I've had a number of people say to
me, "You just ruined my childhood."

CHUCKLES

But I think the way I approach that
is to say, we didn't necessarily

notice it because it was of a piece
with a larger system of racial

dynamics operating in our lives.

So, it was effectively invisible
alongside other things

that we were experiencing.
You differently than I, obviously.

And it brings us up against
this thing, this problem

where we have to say,
"OK, now I see that as racist,

"but I still find it funny
and I still find it charming.

"How do I deal with that?" Yeah.

Wow, that's complex, man,
but thanks so much.

Well, thank you for talking with me.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

It's deeply problematic,
because whereas I find

The Black And White Minstrel Show,

and always have and always will
find it offensive,

and in no way...funny,

there are moments of, er...

..that I remember from animation
that I DID find funny

and that I did laugh at.

GOOFY LAUGHS

I'm not going to say
I'm never going to watch it again,

but it certainly gives me
food for thought in terms of

understanding just how ubiquitous

this stuff can be, how powerful this
stuff is, and how much it seeps

into just every crack and crevice
of my childhood.

Even after the Hollywood movies
and cartoons of the '30s and '40s,

the toxic legacy of minstrelsy
persisted on stage and screen.

It often limited the opportunities
given to black actors themselves.

Make her amends, she weeps.
Devil, devil!

If that the earth could teem
with woman's tears,

each drop she falls
would prove a crocodile.

Out of my sight!

I became the first black actor
to play Othello

at the National Theatre in 1997.

But before then, it was mostly white
actors who were cast in the role.

I'm now going to Shakespeare's Globe
Theatre to meet another black actor

who famously played Othello.

CHUCKLES

Great to see you. And you.
Great to see you.

Oh, look at this place. I know.

Adrian Lester also performed Othello
at the National, in 2013.

Have you performed here? Never.
I'd like to.

Never.
But, yeah, I'd like to as well.

It's got a great feeling to it. Mm.

I have to thank you
for stepping out of the...

HE LAUGHS

..stepping out of the 1998
production.

Because you stepped out, I became
the first black actor to play

Othello at the National,
with Sam Mendes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

That was a great production.
It was fun. It was hard work.

It's a tough beast, man.
It is. It is a dark play.

But it's strange, in that

you're dealing with a play

that sort of undermines

the very nature of what it is
to be...

BOTH: Black.

..and presented in front of people
who are not black.

I remember attending an awards
ceremony and I met a critic who,

he's a lifelong contributor to
the theatre and loves the theatre.

But I told him, "Oh, my next project
is going to be Othello."

And he said, "Oh, really?
You don't seem

"like an Othello to me," you know?

And I kind of went, "What?"
And he was talking about,

"You know, Othello's like a voice,

"and the power and the presence,
and the..."

And I was listening to this guy
telling me everything that I wasn't.

And then he spoke about Olivier.
"Well, Olivier, he really studied.

"I mean, he really, really,
you know, the detail and so on.

"He would actually, he would
actually go to the docks, you see,

"and he would look at the way
people moved and the way

"they spoke and the way they moved."

Happily for I am black.

And at this point in the middle of
his story, he suddenly looked up

in, you know, in regard
to what he was saying.

And I could see him realise
what he was saying to me

about this white actor who had to go
and watch how black people moved

in order to be black,
and then present that blackness

to an audience that said,
"Yes, you've got it right."

Rather than a black actor
who didn't have to go to the docks

to look at how black people moved or
how they spoke, because actually

these constructions that you believe
is what black is,

it isn't.
You may say that is Othello,

but it's not what being black is.

And he suddenly saw, that race panic
suddenly shifted in his face.

He definitely got that? He got that.

And he went, "Well, you know,
I mean, it was a certain time."

THEY LAUGH

And he carried on.

But, yeah, he went red and just
kind of went, "OK...carry on."

But, I mean, I've seen Olivier's
performance. Technically incredible.

But the mannerisms
and the physicality

are really quite ridiculous.
Quite, I mean, exaggerated.

I mean, maybe he did go to
the docks, but I don't remember,

I've never seen my dad
walk like that, I've never seen...

I've never seen any black person
sort of...

Yeah, it's a strange sort of
generic parody of blackness.

It was just wrong.

The royal banner and all quality,
pride, pomp and circumstance

of glorious war!

And O you mortal engines,
whose rude throats

the immortal Jove's dread
clamours counterfeit.

Farewell!

You know, in this documentary,
I'm sort of trying to investigate,

you know, the sort of history
of blackface.

And it seems to me that it's taken
this country an awfully long time

to almost accept black actors.

I'm seeing how it's the tropes,

it's, it's this.

And it's almost as if

that image of blackness

so captured the imagination,
that me and you as real modern men,

it doesn't compute with them.
They're almost not ready to...

They can't accept that, because
we're not the sort of

exaggerated version of it.

I've now traced the lineage of
The Black And White Minstrel Show

that I grew up with all the way back
to 1830s America

and onto things like Olivier's
performance as Othello.

But frankly, I'm still a bit baffled
as to how the TV show,

which now seems so overtly racist,

managed to survive not just through
the '60s, but into the '70s.

Professor David Olusoga has located
some original documents

in the BBC Archives.

They shed light on the thinking
that was going on in the corridors

of power at the corporation
at the time.

This is a file of BBC documents.
Right.

This is an internal memo.

It's from September 1962,
and it's from somebody who's

really significant in this story,
Barrie Thorne.

Now, he was a chief accountant at
the BBC, but what's significant

about him is he had lived and
he'd worked in the United States.

Mm. And he says, "I am a member
of the Urban League..."

which was a civil rights movement
in America,

"..and a supporter of the National
Association for the Advancement

"of Colored People," another civil
rights movement that still exists.

And what's happened is that there's
been a letter in the Times newspaper

complaining that The Black And White
Minstrel Show has been moved

from its traditional Saturday night
slot to Sunday night.

FANFARE

Ladies and gentlemen,

it's The Black
And White Minstrel Show.

APPLAUSE

And he is writing to his colleagues
in the BBC

and to the director of television.

He says, "It is not the news that
The Black And White Minstrel Show

"is to return on Sunday

"that is in any way distressing,
but that it is to return

"to the screen at all." At all. Wow.

It's extraordinary.

"If black faces are to be shown,
for heaven's sake,

"let coloured artists be employed
and with dignity."

So, I mean, he's obviously,
as he's saying, he knows

and he fully understands
that this is a...

..this is a racist portrayal.
That lacks dignity.

That lacks dignity. And this is the
response from the director

of television, Kenneth Adam.

He says, "I am sorry to say
I find myself in complete

"disagreement with you."

He says that minstrelsy,
The Black And White Minstrel Show,

"is a perfectly honourable
theatrical tradition

"of British music hall,

"and to say that it's continuation
is a disgrace and an insult

"to coloured people everywhere
is, I submit, arrant nonsense."

Wow.

I mean, that's just dismissing it
out of hand, isn't it?

"You're wrong. You're just wrong."

And he says,
"I have discussed the subject..."

You're going to love this.

"..with one or two of my
coloured friends,

"and I find them much less sensitive
on the matter

"than their well-meaning
white friends."

So he's, um, "I've got lots of
black friends, and..."

THEY LAUGH

"Some of my best friends are black."
Yeah.

Let me show you
some other documents.

These are from 1967,
five years later.

And these are minutes of
confidential management meetings

in the BBC.

And it refers to "the petition
forwarded to the BBC

"by the Campaign Against Racial
Discrimination, demanding

"the withdrawal of The Black
And White Minstrel Show."

I had no idea that this was being
so fervently fought against. Yeah.

Black people and their allies,
as we call them now, are fighting

because they fully understand
what this show really is.

And in this meeting,
it's been decided

that there isn't a problem,

because "there have been letters
in the press

"that have been severely critical
of the basis of the petition

"and letters printed in the Daily
Mail reflect the general view."

So it's been dismissed at this
management meeting. However,

Barrie Thorne again
writes to his colleagues.

This time he writes to Oliver
Whitley, who is Chief Assistant

to the Director-General -
the CA to the DG.

They love acronyms in the 1960s BBC.
CA to the DG.

And he reminds his colleagues,
he says, "As you know, I previously

"expressed my dismay
about the continuance of

"The Black And White Minstrel Show,
and the current protest

"to the petition by the Campaign
Against Racial Discrimination

"has renewed the passions."

And he goes on to say,

"The BBC says The Black And White
Minstrel Show is a traditional show

"enjoyed by millions,"
and that it offers "good-hearted

"family entertainment".

But he says, "Many regard the show
as Uncle Tom from start to finish

"and as such is
underlyingly offensive to many,

"no matter what the outward gloss

"and size of audience might prove
to the contrary."

Now, remember, this is a show
that at its absolute height

gets 20 million viewers.

The population of the entire country
in the mid-'60s is 55 million.

Wow. That's a lot of eyes. Yeah.

A lot of people imbibing
a lot of ideas. Exactly.

The programme's being broadcast
night after night and Barrie Thorne,

to his credit, is
still fighting against it.

But this is the response
that he gets to this memo.

And this is from Oliver Whitley,
the Chief Assistant again.

This is what he says.

"It seems to be absurd to imagine
that people who are not already

"racially prejudiced could possibly
in some way be contaminated

"by the minstrels.

"People who are already racially
prejudiced are more likely

"to be exacerbated
by the protest itself

"than the object of their protest."

So he's saying people are going
to be more angry with the Campaign

Against Racial Discrimination.

He's saying people are more likely
to be offended by the campaign

against The Black And White Minstrel
Show than the show itself.

And then he says something which
just...kind of breaks my heart

because it's just so arrogant.
It's so dismissive.

He says, "The best advice that
could be given to coloured people

"by their friends would be,
'On this issue,

" 'we can see your point,
but in your own interests,

" 'for heaven's sakes, shut up.' "

What?! Yeah.

No... Show me. No, no.

Shut up, you're wasting your time.
How long do they keep going for?

Well,
I'm afraid there's 11 more years

of The Black And White Minstrel
Show, after these appeals,

after the campaign. 11 more years?
It's cancelled in 1978.

Well, it's not really cancelled,
it's just not renewed.

There's no moment when the BBC says,
"Oh, this is wrong,

"we're going to stop doing it."
It just stops doing it quietly.

Those troupes, they keep going
and they go onstage

in theatres and
end of the pier shows,

and they keep performing until 1987.

THEY SING

I left drama school in 1985.

Two years after leaving drama school
I experienced a psychotic breakdown,

which was bound up with my race
and a sense of my own identity.

As a black actor, I mean,
the hostility. I was surprised.

I mean, that's part of, as I say,

that's why I talk about my...
my mental health.

The hostility shown towards me
was extraordinary.

I didn't expect it.

You arrived into a world
that was already contaminated.

I mean,
it's interesting that they use

the word contamination,
Oliver Whitley,

in this, um, in this memo.
"Contaminated by the minstrels."

Well, that was the world
that you were a young actor in.

That's frightening.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's
The Black And White Minstrel Show.

This visit to the BBC Archives has
shed a lot more light on the show

I watched and was troubled by
as a child.

I've also come to a much deeper
understanding of how these images

of blackness contained
in these shows and the tropes

that they're rooted in may well have
contributed to my own

mental health struggles.

It's hard to think of the positives,
but I think talking about it,

getting it out in the open,
understanding the roots of it

really does help to put an end
to some of this stuff.

I mean, it's unfortunate
that it's taken the death

of George Floyd or, you know,
it's taken all this time

for that message
to reach these isles.

But it would seem that there has
been some effort made now,

in light of the Black Lives Matter
movement, to address

the treatment of black people
and somehow bring inclusion

and diversity into the topics of...
into mainstream conversation.

# Oh, oh. #

And there are other efforts being
made to change the narrative.

Rhiannon Giddens is attempting
to reclaim the music

that was originally created
by enslaved African-Americans.

# Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

# Oh, oh, oh. #

It was their music that was
appropriated by Thomas D Rice

and the many minstrel troupes
that followed.

I was listening to those melodies
and the sound is very familiar,

but I'm used to associating
that sound

with a very different picture.

Could you tell me
what made you reach back

and try, and play these melodies?

So I got into the banjo, obviously,
as a traditional music,

old-time music, looking at it as,
I learned very quickly,

an African-American instrument.

And it wasn't until I discovered
this banjo right here

that I discovered another way
to look at minstrelsy.

So this banjo is a replica
of a banjo from 1858.

The banjo was invented by enslaved
Africans in the Caribbean,

based on a traditional instrument
from West Africa made from a gourd.

The early white performers
of minstrel shows appropriated

not only the music,
but the instrument as well.

As a replica of an 1858 banjo,

Rhiannon's instrument is very close
to the ones that would've been used

when blackface minstrelsy was
at the height of its popularity.

But she has jettisoned the ugly
lyrics that blackface performers

added, in an effort to honour
those who originally created

the music and the instrument itself.

I mean, I've been on this journey
to discover and understand

minstrelsy, and some of it's been
really uncomfortable.

Seeing a lot of these white guys
giving it the whole,

singing about Mississippi and,
you know, the cotton fields.

And as I'm getting older,
understanding the torture

and the pain and suffering that was
going on in the cotton fields

at that time. I mean, how painful
was it for you to get past

some of that imagery,
to now reclaim it and be playing

this beautiful music? You know,
I don't pussyfoot around.

It's horrific.
Minstrelsy is horrific.

I mean, it's a horrific art form
that contains within it

really important stuff, you know?
And we can find the beauty

within the music, because... That's
kind of how I've approached it,

because, you know, those images are
really, really tough

and they never stop being tough
and they shouldn't stop being tough.

I always say to people,
you cannot talk about the banjo

if you don't talk about slavery.

The Caribbean really is
the birthplace of the banjo.

And so the idea really for me is
how do I find my way

to that sound?

And the sounds of those instruments

have just been so compelling to me,

which has, you know, led me
to engaging with the history

that surrounds the banjo.
And so rather than trying to go,

"OK, what is the exact thing that
people might have been playing,

"you know, in 1659?"

Because we have scraps, and those
scraps, let me tell you, I use them,

you know? Right.

I can play you a little piece,
actually, that I have sort of

adapted and expanded from a little
scrap from the hand-sewn document

which was collected in Jamaica
at the end of the 1600s.

And I'll just play that for you.

Wow!

HE APPLAUDS

You know, this has been a really,
um,

a difficult journey for me at times,
seeing some of these images

and seeing the liberal use
of the n-word.

So, you know, thinking back
to my youth, as a young boy,

seeing the minstrels on screen

every Saturday night,

and just really fundamentally
understanding that something

was wrong, but not being able
to articulate it.

And here I am as an adult
now understanding the politics

behind it, you know,
delegitimising black intelligence,

mocking black intelligence,

and...almost appropriating
blackness...

# Eb'ry time I weel about
I jump Jim Crow. #

..and sing these happy songs

without any of the pain
associated with our experience.

That's what is really upsetting
for me.

But seeing what...Rhiannon did then

was to give me...

..give me that music,
give me that sound...

VOICE BREAKS: ..without the pain
of seeing blackface,

without the pain of seeing

an exaggerated, ridiculous image

of myself projected back at me.

She's given me something
that I can take away from it,

that I can...listen to

and almost reach back

and touch my ancestors.

I can just hear them,

the messages that they were sending,

without the ridiculous sideshow act
of blackface.

SHE TUNES UP

The presentation of blackness has
too often

been under the control of others.

But what Rhiannon's music shows is
that the narrative may now finally

be coming back into our own hands.