On occasions the most benign of the minstrel songs and sketches presented the anti-slavery cause as a form of anti-slavery entertainment, one that condemned American slavery while at the same time lampooning and stereotyping black people. From the 1830s to the 1850s white men in blackface delivered anti-slavery speeches from the stages of British theatres and music halls, in the same acts in which they rolled their eyes and crudely imitated black dancing, during their high-speed comic routines. Thomas Rice’s first performances as Jim Crowe in the Surrey Theatre were a mixture of singing and
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