Blackface performances, or minstrel shows, might seem like relics of the 19th century but these racist traditions persisted much longer. This includes Vermont.
Author Rhae Lynn Barnes examines these shows in her new book, Darkology: Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment. Barnes, an assistant professor of American history at Princeton University, spent more than a decade researching minstrel shows and found evidence of blackface performances in nearly every corner of the country into the mid-20th century.
An entire chapter of the book focuses on the “Kake Walk” tradition at the University of Vermont in what she calls “the longest-running commercial blackface event on an American college campus.”
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