Who Were The Founders Of Blackface Minstrelsy?

Name:Instructor:Course:Date: BlackfaceThe blackface minstrelsy defines the 19th century American art and shows that were performed by white people mimicking black people’s ways of life. Minstrelsy was a form of entertainment that developed around 1848 and prevailed for the next 100 years. Minstrel was characterized with three main parts; the entertainment began with a short comic skit, dance, and music. The founder of minstrel is Dartmouth Thomas Rice. He premiered the art in 1828 in New York theatre, where he performed a song and dance routine in tattered clothes and blackface. The tattered clothes represented a Southern plantation slave, while the blackface typified the black person (Lott 45).The six core elements that define the minstrelsy include the three part type of performance characterized with skit in a comic manner, music, and dance. The performers were mainly white people, who disguised themselves as black people by using burnt cork to color their face black. The minstrel performances were showed to white audience, and the entire concept of the minstrel shows of the19th century mimicked black people way of life. The shows portrayed black people as lazy, carnally-oriented, naive, and happy-go-lucky. The songs in the performances represented the plantation songs used by