Blackface has long had a place on the legitimate stage

At the commencement of the Jacksonian period, some American actors were blacking up and singing
comic dialect songs about "Coal Black Rose" and a few other such stereotypes.

In 1832, Thomas Dartmouth Rice came to New York with his portrayal of Jim Crow, and thus began the full
development of the phenomenon called blackface minstrelsy.

It is not unfair to say that the representation of race on the legitimate stage was what we would today call
"racist"; and it was so by very nearly official decree, emanating from the mouths of the powerful. It ap- pears,
then, that much of our conventional understanding of the rela- tionship between blackface and race was a fixture
of, if not also fixed in, the legitimate theatre - often before there even was such a thing as blackface minstrelsy.

‘most of those who supported the development of blackface minstrelsy lived their lives below
“the horizon of record.” (ix-x)

‘anecdotal evidence can be a form of social myth and and thus at least as powerful as fact’
(xi)

‘minstrelsy was a highly popular enterprise powerfully expressive of the common person’s
politics’ (xiii)

‘by setting the historiography of minstrelsy within its own social context, which was
generally white, northern, liberal, middle class, and academic, I bring my story into the
present and ponder, “Did any one group or class benefit from the fabrication?” (xiii)

Upper class whites attempt to prevent a united working class by promoting racism (187 n99)

toll fins that 'roughly the same number of early blackface minstrel songs opposed slavery as
supported it' (187 n111)

'"music" is a metaphor for the official social code; "noise" is implicit violence, a challenge to
law's authority, as Carnival is a challenge to Lent, as callithumpians were demons of
disorder.

This music assaulted sensibilities, challenged the roots of respectability, and promoted
subversion, a world undone, and, concomitantly, a new set of codes' (81–82).

its only been in the past generation or so, that it’s been even possible to talk about
the minstrel show;

its such a deep historical embarrassment and yet its everywhere in our musical
culture;

you can’t really look anywhere, without seeing some traces of the minstrel show;

we can’t really disavow it, because its structures are still very present to us in
most of the vernacular music that we love, including the way we think about the
music, and the way we play it

the wellhead of some of our most vile racial stereotypes

if we could go to the minstrel performance and actually contemplate the white person
inside a black body, performing from within in, a different kind of message might
emerge

thus, the minstrel is not simply a wellhead for racial stereotypes, but also a
sensibility that became, ultimately, capable of repudiating the slave system

the banjo is an instrument, which, in a sense, queers the whole western tradition…it
doesn’t sing like a violin…its an anomaly, and seeger makes use of that by seizing
the banjo

when he picked up the banjo he was picking up its history, linking it with its
history…and the ability of the instrument to continue these actions of solidarity
and community; the instrument was arguably created to do that in the beginning,
and its continuing to do that is so many different ways is not an accident, but rather a
testament to such

even at the very beginning, the idea of what this instrument was, was part of its
creation, it was never just about sound making

in the 19th century there is a whole ideological work that goes into the making of
the banjo into something else, in some ways removing it from its slave background;
uplifting it, and making it a civilised instrument…all of that kind of goes into it

a curious thing about the banjo; every single instant in which it’s reinvented, its
presented as something very old and traditional…so its as an invention or
imagination as nationalism is in some senses

so there’s this really interesting intersection between constant pushing forward

and invention and then the kind of sense of being rooted

New York abolished slavery in 1827…it makes sense that you could have something like
the minstrel show being acceptable in working class neighbourhoods

blackface…a very old european theatrical tradition…then the meeting between the that
and the banjo in the bowery in new york city in the 1780s then create something new

blackface was also part of folk ritual, not just imitation