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Black theater scholar Eric Lott notes that “the coon show was a mine of problematic racial representations, from razor-toting hustlers and gamblers to chicken-thieving loafers” (Lott 172). The shows evolved from Jim Crow shows to coon shows, which focused on the wily nature of the freed slave. The tone of these black caricatures became less innocent and more damaging to blacks. These performers, though already darker skinned, adhered to the minstrelsy tradition of blackface makeup. After the Civil War, the stage opened itself up to new performers, recently freed slaves, willing to impersonate the impersonator. Before the matter of freed slaves became a volatile issue, the typical minstrel show exhibited white men in black makeup performing song and dance exaggerated by lack of coordination and improper English, a style that became known as Jim Crow. However, the shows’ materials changed once freedom was granted to the Negro slaves in the United States. The minstrel show was popular even before the Civil War, performed before audiences in both the North and the South. The white population who circulated the song intended to characterize the black freedman as barbaric and ignorant, and the song also connected the white-constructed definition of ‘nigger’ to the black man’s consciousness. It is the essence of this mental conditioning that I hope to explore. While the purpose of its widespread popularity was to refute the competency and human qualities of black freedmen to white audiences, the ultimate legacy of the minstrel song and nursery rhyme is the mental conditioning of black males. In this paper I am interested in how this song shapes social and cultural race consciousness. A “comic” song titled Ten Little Niggers circulated through the United States in minstrel shows and children’s nursery rhyme books typical of the proliferation of materials focused on the degradation of the African American race. In fact, folklore developed to further propagate the belief of black inferiority.
EENIE MEENIE MINEY MO CATCH A FISH FREE
Even as they found themselves in a position of subordination, forced to concede their free slave labor for the Union’s promise to reconstruct their ruined lands and severed ties to the North, the former citizens of the Confederacy refused to compromise their ideology of the freed slaves’ inferiority. Towards the end of the Civil War, President Lincoln agreed to gesture the freeing of all African slaves through the Emancipation Proclamation. The United States was a nation undergoing destruction and reconstruction in the 1860’s. The white population who circulated the song intended to define the black freedmen as barbaric and ignorant, yet the song also connected the white-constructed definition of ‘nigger’ to the black man’s consciousness. While the purpose of its widespread popularity was to refute the competency and human qualities of the black freedmen to white audiences, the ultimate legacy that the rhyme leaves behind is the mental conditioning of following generations of black males. This paper explores how the ballad shapes social and cultural race consciousness. A “comic” song titled “Ten Little Niggers” circulated through the United States in Minstrel shows and children’s nursery rhyme books in keeping with this ideology. Forced to concede their free slave labor, the former citizens of the Confederacy refused to fold their ideology of the inferiority of the freed slaves.
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“Ten Little Niggers”: The Making of a Black Man’s Consciousnessĭuring Reconstruction in the 1860s, the proud Confederate states found themselves in a place of subordination.