Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop

An exploration and celebration of a controversial tradition that, contrary to popular opinion, is alive and active after more than 150 years.

Yuval Taylor and Jake Austen investigate the complex history of black minstrelsy, adopted in the mid-nineteenth century by African American performers who played the grinning blackface fool to entertain black and white audiences. We now consider minstrelsy an embarrassing relic, but once blacks and whites alike saw it as a black art form—and embraced ...