"Coal Black Rose" is a

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...

, one of the earliest songs to be sung by a man in

blackface Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-Black people to portray a caricature of a Black person. In the United States, the practice became common during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of racial stereo ...

. The man dressed as an overweight and overdressed black woman, who was found unattractive and masculine-looking. The song was first performed in the United States in the late 1820s, possibly by

George Washington Dixon George Washington Dixon (1801?Many biographies list his birth year as 1808, but Cockrell, ''Demons of Disorder'', 189, argues that 1801 is the correct date. This is based on Dixon's records at a New Orleans hospital, which list him as 60 years ol ...

. It was certainly Dixon who popularized the song when he put on three blackface performances at the

Bowery Theatre The Bowery Theatre was a playhouse on the Bowery in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City. Although it was founded by rich families to compete with the upscale Park Theatre, the Bowery saw its most successful period under the populi ...

, the

Chatham Garden Theatre The Chatham Garden Theatre or Chatham Theatre was a playhouse in the Chatham Gardens of New York City. It was located on the north side of Chatham Street on Park Row between Pearl and Duane streets in lower Manhattan. The grounds ran through t ...

, and the Park Theatre in late July 1829. These shows also propelled Dixon to stardom. During the height of its popularity, the general assumption was that Dixon's performances of "Coal Black Rose" in 1829 were the birth of

minstrelsy.Cockrell 75. However,

Thomas Blakeley Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

had also performed the song in 1829 at the Park Theatre. "Coal Black Rose" entered the repertoires of other performers, who sung it both in and out of blackface. The lyrics of "Coal Black Rose" tell of a fight between two black men, Sambo and Cuffee, rivals for the same woman. This was a common trope in early minstrel music, and it proved a good source for dramatic farce. Dixon performed one on 24 September 1829 under the title '' Love in a Cloud'' at the Bowery Theatre.

Thomas D. Rice Thomas Dartmouth Rice (May 20, 1808 – September 19, 1860) was an American performer and playwright who performed in blackface and used African American vernacular speech, song and dance to become one of the most popular minstrel show ente ...

did other dramatitizations under the titles ''Long-Island Juba; or, Love in a Bushel'' and '' Oh Hush!; or The Virginny Cupids''. The latter version became one of the most popular farces of antebellum minstrelsy.Mahar 102.

Notes

References

* Cockrell, Dale (1997). ''Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and Their World''. Cambridge University Press. * Lott, Eric (1995). ''Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class''. Oxford University Press. . * Mahar, William J. (1999). ''Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture''. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. * Watkins, Mel (1999). ''On the Real Side: A History of African American Comedy from Slavery to Chris Rock''. Chicago, Illinois: Lawrence Hill Books. . {{authority control 1820s songs American folk songs Blackface minstrel songs Year of song unknown Songwriter unknown