“E.S. ‘Fat’ Winstead’s shows were based in Fayetteville, where he owned houses and operated an extensive bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling network. Winstead’s Mighty Minstrels had been barnstorming the South since 1931, gathering many outstanding performers whose shows had not survived into the Depression. By 1937 Winstead was challenged in the South only by Silas Green from New Orleans. …” D. Alex Albright, “Mose McQuitty’s Unknown Career: A Personal History of Black Music in America,” Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 11, No. 2 (1989).
Some of the fine entertainment on offer at Wilson Theatre in 1924.
Wilson Mirror, 19 October 1924.
Lee “Lasses” White was an American entertainer who gained fame in the early 1900s doing minstrel shows and wrote one of the first copyrighted twelve-bar blues, “N*gger Blues.”
Per Tim Brooks’ The Blackface Minstrel Show in Mass Media: 20th Century, John R. Van Arnam’s minstrel show was one of the last major troupe’s touring in the United States. Though not shown here, Van Arnam’s posters commonly carried the tag “All New-All White.”
In 1940, 29 year-old Langstard Miller registered for the Word War II draft in Wilson County. A native of Saint Louis, Missouri, Miller listed his address as 700 Stantonsburg Street, Wilson, the home of his friend Betsy Freeman. [Was this actually his permanent address or just a mailing address?] Miller listed his employer as Dr. C.S. Robinson Minstrel Show, based on Wilmington, North Carolina.
I have found very little on Miller and nothing else to link him to Wilson. However, on 11 July 1932, Gurnie Langstard Miller, 25, son of Joe Miller and Mattie Langstard, married Annie Amelia Evans, 21, daughter of John Evans and Ida Ash, on 11 July 1932 in Northampton County, Virginia.
Betsy Freeman was not living at 700 Stantonsburg Street when the census enumerator arrived in 1940. Rather, the censustaker found City of Wilson laborer George Freeman, 56; wife Effie, 45, tobacco factory laborer; son James, 26, tobacco factory laborer; and grandchildren Edward, 13, and Doris Evans, 11. The latter were the children of Bessie [sic] Freeman and James Evans, whom she had married in Wilson on 23 June 1925. [Was Betsy/Bessie Freeman also a minstrel show employee?]
Robinson’s Silver Minstrels were a white-owned tent show that featured African-American performers. The “Repertoire-Tent Shows” section of the 21 November 1942 issue of The Billboard magazine featured this short piece:
A few months later, in the 27 February 1943 Billboard, Robinson’s Silver Minstrels advertised for “colored performers and musicians, girl musicians OK; trumpets, saxophones, piano player, chorus girls, novelty acts.” The company promised the “highest salaries on road today” and a “long, sure season.” “All performers who have worked for me in past, write” to the show’s Clinton, N.C., address.
Year-end entertainment in Wilson in 1897 featured a nationally popular minstrel show, Gorton’s — “strictly refined” and “entirely fit from start to finish for a lady audience.” Most importantly, Gorton’s was a white minstrel outfit, not one of the Black companies offering weak knock-offs off Gorton’s reputation. (That boast is so rich it needs to be read slowly. And repeatedly. Yes, Gorton’s did Black music better than Black people did.)
Who knew that “negro wedding” was a whole subgenre of blackface?
… Me either.
But it was, and quite popular in Wilson County as late as the 1940s.
In 1927, Mrs. R.H. Llewellyn, clever and entertaining, entertained the Rotary Club with a negro wedding and a negro sermon.
Wilson Daily Times, 14 December 1927.
In 1938, Stantonsburg High School’s senior class’ evening of “good clean fun and amusement” included a negro wedding.
Wilson Daily Times, 11 March 1938.
In 1941, Saratoga High School’s Beta Club presented a negro wedding whose finale was a stirring “Dark Town Strutter’s Ball.”
Wilson Daily Times, 26 February 1941.
Participants did not need to make up their own mockeries. Titles of negro wedding plays include “Henpeck at the Hitching Post,” “My Wild Days are Over,” and “The Coontown Wedding.” Characters in Mary Bonham’s “The Kink in Kizzie’s Wedding: A Mock Negro Wedding,” published in 1921, include Lizzie Straight, Pinky Black, Sunshine Franklin, Necessary Dolittle, George Washington Goot, and Uncle Remus. The opening lines: “CAPT. COTTON — ‘Bein’ as Ise de Knight ob de Hoss-shoe, an’ while we’s waitin’ fo’ de bridal paih, we will practice de riding’ gaits.’ ALL GROOMSMEN — ‘Thank-u-doo, obleeged-to-you!’ (They salute the Captain.)” Charming.
