The Black and White Minstrel Show
The Black and White Minstrel Show was a British light entertainment show that ran for twenty years on BBC prime-time television. Running from 1958 to 1978, it was a weekly variety show that presented traditional American minstrel and country songs, as well as show tunes and music hall numbers, lavishly costumed and often presented in blackface. It was also a successful stage show that ran for ten years from 1962 to 1972 at the Victoria Palace Theatre, London. This was followed by tours of UK seaside resorts until 1989, and tours in Australia and New Zealand. From early in its history, and increasingly throughout its run, the show received criticism for its racist premise and content.
The Black and White Minstrel Show
United Kingdom
English
London, England
14 June 1958 –
21 July 1978
Denunciation as racist[edit]
Within five years of the show's premiere on UK television, its portrayal of blacked-up characters behaving with stereotypical African-American manners was already being observed by some as offensive and racist. After the 1963 murder of 35-year-old white postal worker William Lewis Moore in Alabama, who marched from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, to protest against segregation in the American South, the satirical show That Was the Week That Was parodied The Black and White Minstrel Show's trivialisation of the systemic racism in the Southern American states with a sketch in which Millicent Martin dressed as Uncle Sam and sang a parody of "I Wanna Go Back to Mississippi" ("Where the Mississippi mud / Kind of mingles with the blood / Of the niggers that are hanging from the branches of the trees").[9] accompanied by minstrel singers in blackface ("Mississippi, it's the state you've gotta choose / Where we hate all the darkies and the Catholics and the Jews / Where we welcome any man / Who is strong and white and belongs to the Ku Klux Klan").[10][11]
David Hendy, Professor of Media and Cultural History at the University of Sussex, comments that Barrie Thorne, the corporation's chief accountant, described the series in an internal memo to Director of Television Kenneth Adam in 1962 as being "a disgrace and an insult to coloured people". He continued: "If black faces are to be shown, for heaven’s sake let coloured artists be employed and with dignity".[12] Thorne raised the issue again in 1967 with Oliver Whitley, Chief Assistant to the BBC's director general, Sir Hugh Greene. Whitley responded: "The best advice that could be given to coloured people by their friends would be: 'On this issue, we can see your point, but in your own best interests, for heaven's sake, shut up.'"[12][13][14]
In 1967, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination presented a petition to the BBC calling for the show to be cancelled.[15] The following year, the BBC experimented with a version of the show called Masquerade, in which the main singers appeared without blackface, and the black singers wore whiteface.[16] In 1969, due to continuing accusations of racism, Music Music Music, a spin-off series in which the minstrels appeared without their blackface make-up, replaced The Black and White Minstrel Show. However, after one series, The Black and White Minstrel Show returned.
Since its cancellation in 1978, The Black and White Minstrel Show has come to be regarded with disdain. BBC writer Kate Broome states, "That an innocently-intentioned show could, in just a generation, become such a screen pariah is one of the most extraordinary episodes in television history".[17]
Final years[edit]
The BBC1 television programme was cancelled in 1978 as part of a reduction in variety programming (by this point, the blackface element had been reduced),[18] while the stage show continued. A touring version toured continuously from 1960 until 1987, with a second company touring Australia and New Zealand from 1962 to 1965, 1969 to 1971, and 1978 to 1979. Having left the Victoria Palace Theatre, where the stage show played from 1962 to 1972, a second show toured almost every year to various big city and seaside resort theatres around the UK, including the Futurist in Scarborough, the Winter Gardens in Morecambe, the Festival Theatre in Paignton, the Congress Theatre in Eastbourne and the Pavilion Theatre in Bournemouth. This continued every year until 1989, when a final tour of three Butlins resorts (Minehead, Bognor Regis, and Barry Island) saw the last official Black and White Minstrel Show staged.
Legacy[edit]
In a 1971 episode of The Two Ronnies, a musical sketch, "The Short and Fat Minstrel Show", was performed as a parody of The Black and White Minstrel Show, featuring spoofs of various songs.[19] An episode of the BBC comedy series The Goodies ("Alternative Roots"), spoofed the positive reception of The Black and White Minstrel Show, suggesting that any programme could double its viewing figures by being performed in blackface, and mentioning that a series of The Black and White Minstrel Show had been tried without makeup.[20]
The Are You Being Served? episode "Roots" featured a storyline in which Mr. Grace's lineage was traced in order to perform an appropriate song and dance for his 90th birthday. The result was a number that parodied The Black and White Minstrel Show by having the male performers in blackface, while the females (excluding Mrs. Slocombe) were not.
In 2023 the BBC broadcast a documentary presented by the actor David Harewood and the historian David Olusoga about the pernicious influence of blackface minstrelsy in pervading racial stereotypes and anti-black racism in Great Britain. The documentary was framed around, and heavily critical of, the BBC’s own The Black and White Minstrel Show.[21]