Related Research Articles
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist entertainment developed in the early 19th century. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent. The shows were performed by mostly white people in make-up or blackface for the purpose of playing the role of black people. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows lampooned black people as dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky.
The Story of Little Black Sambo is a children's book written and illustrated by Scottish author Helen Bannerman and published by Grant Richards in October 1899. As one in a series of small-format books called The Dumpy Books for Children, the story was popular for more than half a century.
"Turkey in the Straw" is an American folk song that first gained popularity in the early 19th century. The first part of the song is a contrafactum of the ballad "My Grandmother Lived on Yonder Little Green", published in 1857 by Horace Waters, 333 Broadway, New York City, which itself is a contrafactum of the Irish ballad "The Old Rose Tree" which was published by at least 1795 in Great Britain. It was a popular tune for fiddle players as early as 1820. In the late 1870s until the 1930s, racist variations of it were performed in minstrel shows by blackface actors and musicians.
Helen Brodie Cowan Bannerman was a Scottish author of children's books. She is best known for her first book, Little Black Sambo (1899).
Sambo is a derogatory label for a person of African descent in the English language. Historically, it is a name in American English derived from a Spanish term for a person of African and Native American ancestry. After the Civil War, during the Jim Crow era and beyond, the term was used in conversation, print advertising and household items as a pejorative descriptor for Black people. The term is now considered offensive in American and British English.
All This and Rabbit Stew is a 1941 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Tex Avery. The cartoon was released on September 13, 1941, and features Bugs Bunny.
Billy Kersands was an African-American comedian and dancer. He was the most popular black comedian of his day, best known for his work in blackface minstrelsy. In addition to his skillful acrobatics, dancing, singing, and instrument playing, Kersands was renowned for his comic routines involving his large mouth, which he could contort comically or fill with objects such as billiard balls or saucers. His stage persona was that of the dim-witted black man of the type that had been popularized in white minstrel shows. Modern commentators such as Mel Watkins cite him as one of the earliest black entertainers to have faced the dilemma of striking a balance between social satire and the reinforcement of negative stereotypes.
Epaminondas and His Auntie is one of a series of books for young children written by Sara Cone Bryant and illustrated by Inez Hogan. It was first published in 1911.
Frank Dobias was an illustrator of children's books. Among many other works, his illustrations for the Japanese version of Little Black Sambo made the book a bestseller in Japan, selling well over a million copies between 1953 and 1988.
Rastus is a pejorative term traditionally associated with African Americans in the United States. It is considered offensive.
Stereotypes of African Americans and associated with their culture have evolved within American society dating back to the slavery of black people during the colonial era. These stereotypes are largely connected to the persistent racism and discrimination faced by African Americans residing in the United States.
Gustaf Adolf Tenggren was a Swedish-American illustrator. He is known for his Arthur Rackham-influenced fairy-tale style and use of silhouetted figures with caricatured faces. Tenggren was a chief illustrator for The Walt Disney Company in the late 1930s, in what has been called the Golden Age of American animation, when animated feature films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Bambi and Pinocchio were produced.
Ernest Hogan was the first African-American entertainer to produce and star in a Broadway show and helped to popularize the musical genre of ragtime.
Coon songs were a genre of music that presented a stereotype of Africans. They were popular in the United States and Australia from around 1880 to 1920, though the earliest such songs date from minstrel shows as far back as 1848, when they were not yet identified with "coon" epithet. The genre became extremely popular, with white and black men giving performances in blackface and making recordings. Women known as coon shouters also gained popularity in the genre.
Frederick Abbott Stokes was an American publisher, founder and long-time head of the eponymous Frederick A. Stokes Company.
The watermelon stereotype is a stereotype that African Americans have an unusually great appetite for watermelons. This stereotype has remained prevalent into the 21st century.
Ethnic Notions is a 1987 documentary film directed by Marlon Riggs. It examines anti-Black stereotypes that permeated popular culture from the ante-bellum period until the advent of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
The Jolly Darkie Target Game was a game developed and manufactured by the McLoughlin Brothers which was released in 1890. It was produced until at least 1915. Other companies produced similar games, such as Alabama Coon by J. W. Spear & Sons.
Harry Stephen Pepper was a British pianist, songwriter, composer, actor, and BBC producer, whose career stretched from Edwardian era seaside entertainments to BBC television in the 1950s.
Sam and the Tigers: A New Telling of Little Black Sambo is a 1996 Children's picture book by Julius Lester and illustrator Jerry Pinkney. It is a retelling of the classic story by Helen Bannerman and is about a young boy, Sam, who outwits a group of hungry tigers.
References
- ↑ "96.03.13: Black Actors inamerican Cinema". teachers.yale.edu.
- ↑ Kaiser, Ernest (November 10, 1971). "Afro USA: A Reference Work on the Black Experience". Bellwether Publishing Company – via Google Books.
- ↑ Reid, Mark A.; Reid, Reviewer Mark A. (February 23, 1993). Redefining Black Film. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520079021 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Yuill, Phyllis J. (November 10, 1976). "Little Black Sambo: A Closer Look : a History of Helen Bannerman's The Story of Little Black Sambo and Its Popularity/controversy in the United States". Racism and Sexism Resource Center for Educators – via Google Books.