The Minstrel Show Gets Religion

• Published in: Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry p. 125
• Main Author: Graham, Sandra Jean
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: University of Illinois Press 26.02.2018
• Subjects: [William] Delehanty and [Thomas M.] Hengler; Agricultural geography; Agricultural land; Agricultural sciences; Agriculture; American Music; Anthropology; Applied anthropology; Art music; Art songs; Artists; Arts; Behavioral sciences; Biological sciences; blackface minstrelsy; Camp meeting; Charley Howard; commercial spirituals; Cultural anthropology; Economic disciplines; Economics; Employment; Entertainment; Entertainment facilities; Fayette Welch; Folk culture; Folk music; folk spiritual; Folkloristics; Folksongs; Fred Cartee; Georgia Minstrels; High culture; Hughes and White’s Minstrels; J. W. McAndrews (blackface dancer); Labor economics; Leisure studies; Minstrel shows; Minstrels; Music; Music genres; Musicians; Occupations; Opera houses; parody of religious song; Performance spaces; Performing artists; Performing arts; Performing arts events; Plantations; Popular music; Popular songs; Recreation; religious burlesque; Religious songs; Simmons and Slocum’s Minstrels; Singers; Spirituals; Variety shows; Walter Bray; Welch; “Carry the News—We Are All Surrounded” (minstrel song); “Contraband Children” (minstrel song); “Rock o’ My Soul” (folk spiritual); “Rock’a My Soul” (minstrel song)
• ISBN: 9780252041631; 0252041631
• DOI: 10.5622/illinois/9780252041631.003.0005

Nothing was sacred when it came to blackface performance, including religion.¹ Before the Civil War, religious topics surfaced in occasional pokes at cults and fads. There were parodies of the celebrated preacher Henry Ward Beecher, malaprop-laden stump speeches by “backwoods preachers,” burlesques of the Shaking Quakers’ contortions,² and secular songs featuring cameos by biblical characters (e.g., Dan Emmett’s popular social satire “Jordan Is a Hard Road to Travel,” in which David and Goliath materialize for no obvious reason).³ After the war, however, blackface performers found in religion a steady stream of subject matter tailor-made for comedic treatment, owing to several