Black performers found putting on blackface disturbing, but they had little choice if they wanted to keep their jobs and perform onstage. Over time, black performers were able to tone down the racism in the songs, jokes, and routines.
By the time of Orphelia’s story, a few African Americans were even running their own all-black musical troupes, much like the fictional Madame Meritta. These performers did not wear blackface or tattered clothing—they dressed like stars and became very popular with black audiences.
As Orphelia discovers, however, life on the road was far from glamorous. Troupes like Madame Meritta’s performed in a different town each night, which meant many miles of hard travel. Although the performers wore elegant clothes and presented an image of luxury, few became rich. Most struggled to keep a band together and make a living, just as Madame Meritta and Mr. Othello do.
Some people, both black and white, disapproved of minstrel shows because they believed that nonreligious music—or, as Momma calls it, “sassy music”—was sinful. And most parents, even those who enjoyed minstrel music, didn’t want their children becoming part of the rough life of show business.
As Orphelia’s parents knew, black entertainers faced special dangers because of racism, particularly in the South. When a minstrel show came to town, white citizens sometimes posted threatening signs warning the black performers to leave town as soon as the show was over.
Occasionally, racial hatred led to murder. A mob of whites might go after a black man and kill him, often by hanging. In some cases, these lynch mobs dragged black men right out of jail while white guards looked the other way, as happened to Uncle Winston. Unlike Uncle Winston, however, most victims of lynch mobs did not survive. Sadly, such crimes still occur. Today they are often called hate crimes.
By the turn of the century, America’s industries were growing rapidly and needed workers. Thousands of black Southerners headed up the Mississippi River Valley to big cities such as Memphis, St. Louis, and Chicago. They brought with them the songs they had grown up with. Some of these songs were lively, toe-tapping folk songs. Others were slave songs or spirituals, also called sorrow songs because they expressed the suffering of slave life. As these musicians traveled, they traded songs and musical styles—and developed new ones.
Two new styles becoming especially popular at the time of Orphelia’s story were blues and ragtime. Blues music tended to be slow and heartfelt, much like the religious slave spirituals, except that blues songs told of lost love and the troubles of everyday life. Great blues singers of the time, like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, could move their audiences to tears or make them jump with joy.
Ragtime had a very different feeling. It grew out of the lively folk music of southern blacks. Its strong, catchy rhythms had a slightly uneven, or ragged, beat. Orphelia would likely have heard the “Maple Leaf Rag,” a piano song written in Missouri by African American composer Scott Joplin. It became the first ragtime hit and remains a favorite today.
Both ragtime and blues became popular across the country and were soon adopted by white musicians. Later these styles gave rise to other forms of American music that have become popular around the world—jazz, rock and roll, and more recently, rap.
In 1904, another new attraction that gained worldwide popularity was the St. Louis World’s Fair. Seven times as big as Disneyland, the fair drew 20 million visitors in the eight months it was open. Its grounds were filled with vast gardens and buildings the size of palaces, where visitors could view America’s latest inventions as well as objects, animals, and even people from around the world. Fair-goers could watch a reenactment of a naval battle or stroll through a Japanese tea garden, an Irish castle, or a thatched Philippine village complete with native families—while enjoying brand-new treats such as the ice cream cone and Dr. Pepper. In the days before movies and television, the fair provided awestruck visitors with an astounding look at life around the globe. To a girl like Orphelia, the thrilling spectacle was beyond anything she could imagine.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In The Minstrel’s Melody, my character Winston Taylor is nearly lynched after an incident in the Dixie Palace in 1892. My book is set in a real county—in fact, the county where I grew up—Lewis County in northeast Missouri. To my knowledge, and from what I’ve researched, I have not found any evidence that an actual lynching was reported in 1892 in Lewis County.
About the Author
Eleanora E. Tate was born in Missouri, where The Minstrel’s Melody takes place. Of her ten books, her newest is Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance, a recipient of the AAUW North Carolina Book Award for Juvenile Literature and the IRA Teacher’s Choice award. The Minstrel’s Melody is a Notable Children’s Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies. Tate’s other books include The Secret of Gumbo Grove (a Parents’ Choice Award winner); Thank You, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.!; and Front Porch Stories at the One-Room School.
Ms. Tate is a former president of the National Association of Black Storytellers and a winner of the 1999 Zora Neale Hurston Award. Her short stories and essays have appeared in numerous magazines, including American Girl and Scholastic Storyworks. She teaches at Hamline University and at the Institute of Children’s Literature. Visit her website at www.eleanoraetate.com.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text Copyright © 2001, 2009 by Eleanora E. Tate
Map Illustration by Glenn Harrington
Line Art by Greg Dearth
Cover design by Amanda DeRosa
ISBN: 978-1-4976-4661-2
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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