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Stage Name |
Birth Name |
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Jim Crow |
Thomas
Dartmouth Rice |
Traveling Minstrels have been around along time, they were basically
traveling performers of the old Gypsy type we think today. The
minstrel show was to come around much later and was one of the
first inherent forms of ante-bellum American Stage entertainment.
The Minstrel shows first began around February 1843 when a group
of four white men from Virginia, the "Virginia Minstrels",
applied black cork to their faces and performed a song-and-dance
act in a small hall in New York City.
--Thomas Dartmouth Rice is considered to be the first white minstrel
man in 'Black face' (makeup) with his rendition of an old
crippled Cincinnati African-American by the name of Jim Crow who
sang what was called a 'Negro Ditty' and shuffled his feet to
the ditty "Weel
about and turn about and do jis so, Eb'ry time I weel about I
jump Jim Crow." Rice's
characterization of this Negro ditty and dance routine in 1828
was an immediate success which tookhim touring all around the country and abroad. This was to be
the origin of the famous 'Jump
Jim
Crow' song.
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Rice first introduced this dance at the Southern Theater in Louisville
Kentucky and also performed this song and dance number to audiences
in Pittsburgh. Other famous songs followed
such as 'Zip Coon' (Turkey In The Straw). The
Truckin' dance is
is believed to be related to the Jump Jim Crow dance that Rice
had performed. The
Warners Brothers Film short called Minstrel Days (1940) features
the story of "Jump Jim Crow" with Willie Best, Eddie
Cantor and Al Jolson.
Jim
Crow meaning:
In 1883, The U.S. Supreme Court began to strike down the foundations
of the post-Civil War Reconstruction, declaring the Civil Rights
Act of 1875 unconstitutional. The Court also ruled that the Fourteenth
Amendment prohibited state governments from discriminating against
people because of race but did not restrict private organizations
or individuals from doing so. Thus railroads, hotels, Theaters,
and the like could legally practice segregation... These historic "Jim Crow laws" were a response to the
new reality that required white supremacy to move to where it
would have a legal basis to retain control over the black population.
Unfortunately, What was started as the Governments commitment
to equality but rather 'white supremacy' and the things necessary
to preserve it. By 1899 the Court would rule Schools could be
segregated and by 1914 every Southern state had passed laws that
created two separate societies; one black, the other white. These
Jim crow laws would last up until 1954 with what is known as the
"Civil Rights Movement" which began the end of the Jim
Crow Laws.
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