Darkology and the Deep Roots of American Racism: A Conversation with Rhae Lynn Barnes

Darkology, written by Princeton historian Rhae Lynn Barnes, is a comprehensive, jaw-dropping survey of the grotesqueries known as minstrelsy and blackface. The book explodes the comforting notion that the minstrel show was a long-ago curiosity, an outdated relic of a less enlightened time. It was not a curiosity, nor did it lurk in the cultural margins: It was a shockingly entrenched, pervasive form that saturated the American landscape. Nor, historically, was it that long ago: blackface lasted until the 1970s. It exists, in some quarters, today.

The genesis of Darkology grew out of some basic questioning. Books about blackface certainly existed, observes Barnes, but their postulation was that the form declined during the twentieth century. But the Jim Crow era takes its very name from a famous minstrel character. “What,” Barnes wondered, “is going on?” Darkology is her answer, a survey of “the number-one entertainment form in America through the 1960s.”

Barnes’s methodology in undertaking the book makes for its own compelling narrative. As blackface finally moved into the realm of the unacceptable, minstrelsy’s mementos, printed matter, and souvenirs—some of them prized family artifacts—were banished or discarded altogether. It was uncovering a history hidden both literally and metaphorically. “People were destroying [minstrel programs and other detritus] because they thought they were so taboo. Part of this story was traveling around America in all these different corners… poking around in America’s cultural attics and basements and trying to find evidence of what are really cultural hate crimes and piecing it back together.”

There were also the factors that started “with Barack Obama’s ascendancy in 2008. A lot of local libraries and also people who were impacted by the housing crisis and who needed to downsize were basically discarding” this racist source material, which then “started to resurface for the first time.”

Blackface’s cultural dominance extended to the stage, the screen, in schools, and thousands upon thousands of amateur performances that stretched out over decades. This is damning enough, but even more unforgivable is that blackface flourished thanks to the imprimatur of officialdom.

The all-white Elks fraternal organization was founded in the nineteenth century as an explicit forum for minstrelsy. It adhered to that mandate throughout the twentieth century. By the 1940s, as per Darkology, its membership “boasted…presidents and congressmen from both parties, Supreme Court justices, and military generals. Presidents Harding, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Ford were Elks, as were… Barry Goldwater and Chief Justice Earl Warren. Generals Pershing, Patton, and MacArthur were members.” The Elks were of enormous political significance. And blackface was their passion.

Franklin Roosevelt was an avid enthusiast of minstrelsy. (A minstrel show was scheduled on the day of his death at Warm Springs, Georgia in 1945; that show and FDR’s passion for minstrelsy has been expunged from the official narratives.) The New Deal and WPA dispensed significant largesse to the arts—including minstrelsy.

In one of the book’s more startling sections, we learn that minstrelsy thrived—for a variety of reasons–within the brutal confines of the Japanese-American concentration camps during World War II.

Not incidentally, minstrelsy generated enormous sums of capital. Publishing houses—lots of them—specialized in the booming business of amateur minstrelsy. The white public could avail themselves of how-to-guides, scripts, sheet music, and special blackface makeup with detailed instructions for its application and removal. This “blackface capitalism” also yielded substantial revenue for a dizzying array of (white) charities and institutions.

Minstrelsy became a cherished part of growing up, a bonding experience, and a sort of cultural outreach. The feelings of people of color, obviously, were deemed nonexistent.

“I was able to get a lot of programs, which are really fascinating artifacts,” Barnes states. Minstrel programs could run into dozens of advertising-filled pages and served as a de facto community guide. “Because unlike the sheet music or the plays, the minstrel programs not only lists who performs, but also can help you unlock the social and economic history of how the Jim Crow era worked. Not only would you go to this racist minstrel play, but you’d be asked to support all of the other people who were advertising.  I realized trying to find more programs was a critical part of the story.”

Minstrelsy thrived during World War II. One could have the reasonable expectation that minstrelsy finally faded out after 1945, as a nascent Civil Rights movement began to emerge. But minstrelsy did not fade out. It actually flourished in the postwar era as Americans sought their familiar comfort engendered by the degradation of people of color.

Another reasonable expectation was that once opposition to blackface began to coalesce in the 1950s, the minstrel show would wither away in shame. This is also incorrect: Blackface’s ardent partisans doubled down in defense of their beloved entertainment.

“I think there’s a lot of reasons for that. Because blackface had been really institutionalized by the federal government and the WPA, there was an incredible connection that people had. These were songs and plays that their mother had sung to them as a child. And they had been taught they were patriotic….” There was an “intense emotional connection to these songs that are about displacement and separation from your family. And they are about romanticized ideas about America.

“They’re also pro-slavery, pro–white supremacy songs. You have to grapple with the duality there. And then, of course, when they’re really instructed by their local and federal government that these are patriotic, there’s an additional layer to it. When people are confronted and are told, ‘This is not an accurate representation of American history and slavery. And, in fact, what you’re doing is really harmful,’ they have to reevaluate their relationship to their country, to their own family, and to their childhood growing up. I think that is very hard for people.”

Darkology also offers an exploration of the University of Vermont’s beloved Kake Walk, a venerable, community-wide minstrel extravaganza that was finally banished in—incredibly—1969.

“What’s unique about the University of Vermont story is two things. One—it’s the longest reigning annual minstrel show in America. But in terms of a college campus, what’s really distinctive is it’s the only time that the students themselves actually vote and get it off the campus. It’s really fascinating because Vermont—at the time—is traditionally thought of as this white, rural place. But the bulk of the students at the University of Vermont come from New York and New Jersey. There’s an interesting phenomenon where students who were living vivid interracial lives in New York and then going up to Vermont and engaging in this.”

After reading such a vivid chronicle of hatred and racism, there is the temptation to lapse into despair, but any despair does not emanate from Rhae Lynn Barnes.

“There are a lot of stories in the book where thankfully Americans do recognize what they’re doing and the manifestation of racism and hatred that in some ways they’re blind to. It’s a dark topic, but the thing that’s heartening for me are these heroes in the book, like Betty Reid and Linda Patterson”—two women of color who vocally, bravely objected to blackface performances—“who are basically willing to put their lives on the line in really scary situations: ‘This is not acceptable, I am full human being, I am a citizen.’ Eventually those [white] communities recognized: ‘We need to change our ways.’

“In this dark historical moment,” Barnes concludes, “when history is being attacked by the federal government… one thing I say to my students is: Look around.

“I teach at Princeton University. Fifty years ago women weren’t allowed on campus. And the demographics of my students are so diverse in terms of race, class, and religion. When I work with my students, I realize part of why we’re all in a room together is the incredible bravery and work of these Civil Rights movement workers.

“Even though the pendulum swings back and forth in history, it always goes further. That is something that I take away from this experience. Americans really do want to know their history. They want to live and help each other for the most part, even though that’s not what we’re rhetorically hearing in the news. But I’ve gone to every corner of America. I used to always think it was so cheesy when people would say… ‘everybody in their heart is good.’ I’ve found that to be true for the most part. That’s what I take away from this experience.”

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