minstrel

This song, also known as “The Old Folks at Home,” became the most-performed song of 19th-century minstrel shows, and was adopted as the state song of Florida, through which the Suwannee River flows, in 1935.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 1, 2026

The screams wouldn’t have reached the Hollywood Hills, where Bill Whitten wound down after a typical Sunday cooking Southern-style collard greens and cornbread in his eclectic home filled with African and Black American minstrel art.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 13, 2025

White minstrel performers like Joel Walker Sweeney were credited with popularizing the instrument that inspired a vital part of popular music in the country seen as "hillbilly" music.

From Salon ● Feb. 15, 2024

Dane Laffrey’s resourceful set — a raised wooden platform flanked, courtroom-style, by simple chairs — effectively evokes a minstrel stage, soapbox and gallows at once.

From New York Times ● Nov. 2, 2022

The squire brought down, and gave Demodokos, the clear-toned harp; and centering on the minstrel magical young dancers formed a circle with a light beat, and stamp of feet.

From "The Odyssey" by Homer

NM: It’s such a complicated dance, to try to dismiss them as minstrels while also understanding the quality of their work.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 16, 2024

We are the last wandering minstrels, racing town to town, big clubs and small, piano player to piano player.

From New York Times ● Jul. 27, 2022

The composer and songwriter Stephen Foster, a white Pittsburgher, wrote the 1853 melody, which blackface minstrels made into a hit.

From Salon ● May 5, 2022

Meanwhile, abolitionist Frederick Douglass made it a point to become the era’s most-photographed man, in direct opposition to a culture drenched in racist images of minstrels and contented slaves.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 2, 2020

There, visiting pilgrims, knights at arms, merchants, and minstrels gathered, each awaiting the attention of the Prior.

From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli