Minstrel shows began in the 1830s, when white performers darkened their skin with burnt cork, painted on large lips and played characters who were lazy, foolish or happy in slavery. Thomas Dartmouth Rice's "Jim Crow" character was among the first, and minstrelsy became one of the most popular forms of American entertainment for much of the century. The shows taught white audiences to see Black people as subhuman and helped justify slavery and segregation.
Blackface moved into film and radio. The Birth of a Nation in 1915 used white actors in blackface to portray Black legislators as dangerous, and the 1927 film The Jazz Singer featured a blackface performance. Characters such as Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben drew on minstrel stereotypes until they were retired in 2020 and 2021.
Blackface still appears in Halloween costumes, college parties and yearbook photos. Digital blackface, the use of Black people's images and slang online by non-Black people, is a newer form.