African Americans in Theater

The earliest representations of blacks in theater can be found during the decades before the Civil War in the minstrel show, originally through blackface, in which white actors would paint their faces and mimic black stereotypes. After the Civil War, a number of black minstrel troupes were created and were forced into propagating the same Sambo stereotypes. In fact, this was the first time that many whites were coming in contact with African-American culture and thus they accepted these stereotypes as truth. In some ways, the minstrel shows were important in that they did capture certain aspects of black humor and performance style; however, for the most part their significance lies in their reinforcement of the dehumanization of blacks through stereotypes.

In the face of this ignorance, it is easy to understand the importance of Paul’s depictions of dignified, human black characters. Without ever having come into contact with African-Americans, there had developed an expectation in white America of a lazy “darkie” content on the plantation and a belief in their own superiority. In addition to the inherent bigotry of such a belief system, this completely barred the existence of any actual understanding between cultures, because even with the best intentions, whites were necessarily approaching any situation involving blacks with atrocious misinformation. Further, the difficulties that challenging these precepts must have presented are enormous, because Paul and artists like him were not forcing whites to admit what they honestly knew to be the truth; on the contrary, for much of the population their superiority had been ingrained in their minds as the absolute truth. Paul had to convince his oppressors that everything they knew had been based on lies.

Although stereotyped images and a severe public under-representation continued to plague blacks throughout the twentieth century, the fight to be recognized as human was won through the efforts of artists such as Paul Robeson.