The Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon / Edition 1

by Melvin Patrick Ely

Overview

Forty million Americans indulged in a national obsession in 1930: they eagerly tuned in Amos 'n' Andy, the nightly radio comedy in which a pair of white actors portrayed the adventures of two black men making a new life in the big city. Meanwhile, some angry African Americans demanded that Amos 'n' Andy be banned, even as others gathered in the barbershops and radio stores of Harlem to chuckle over the adventures of Amos, Andy, and the Kingfish.

Melvin Patrick Ely unveils a fascinating tale of America's shifting color line, in which two professional directors of blackface minstrel shows manage to produce a series so rich and complex that it wins admirers ranging from ultra-racists to outspoken racial egalitarians. Eventually, the pair stir further controversy when they bring their show to television.

In a preface written especially for this new edition of his acclaimed classic, Ely shows how white and black responses to his Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy since 1991 tell a revealing story of their own about racial hopes and fears at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813920924
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	10/29/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	322
Sales rank:	886,725
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Melvin Patrick Ely is Newton Family Professor of History and Black Studies at the College of William and Mary.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Acknowledgments	xvii
1.	White Men, Black Voices	1
2.	Boyhood Dreams and Racial Myths	11
3.	Jefferson Snowball, Traveling Minstrel	26
4.	Inventing Radio and Toying with Color	47
5.	The Great Black Migration into America's Living Room	64
6.	The Mystic Knights and Their Ladies	97
7.	Amos 'n' Andy's Balancing Act	115
8.	A Changing Racial Landscape	130
9.	The Black Debate Begins	160
10.	"This Continuing Harm"	194
	Epilogue: A New Day?	245
	A Personal Postscript	255
	Notes	259
	A Word About Sources	301
	Index	310

What People are Saying About This

"Fresh Air," National Public Radio - Maureen Corrigan

Painfully funny... ironic.

From the Publisher

An engrossing, perhaps definitive, account of one of the most fascinating episodes in popular entertainment.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

An engrossing, perhaps definitive, account of one of the most fascinating episodes in popular entertainment.

Editorial Reviews

Compelling... a stunningly objective look at the history of the program and how it affected, and was affected by, the culture at large.... Remarkable.

Boston Globe

An engrossing, perhaps definitive, account of one of the most fascinating episodes in popular entertainment.

From the Publisher

Engaging.... [Ely] does a brilliant job of sorting out what is in many ways a hellishly complex story.... With exemplary scholarship and well-reasoned eloquence, he advances us a long way toward understanding, while also vividly revealing some unsettling aspects of our culture that shouldn't be forgotten.

San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle

Amos 'n' Andy was an instant success, and went on to become both a national institution and a subject of racial controversy; Mr. Ely's sensitive and scholarly work shows us why.

New Yorker

Painfully funny... ironic.

"Fresh Air," National Public Radio - Maureen Corrigan

Amos 'n' Andy was an instant success, and went on to become both a national institution and a subject of racial controversy; Mr. Ely's sensitive and scholarly work shows us why.

New Yorker