Racist 19th-century minstrelsy survived into 1970s Britain. David Olusoga has developed a TV show on its long, shameful history but wonders if he should have
Hidden away in the storage facilities of Hollywood movie studios and entombed in the vaults of museums and libraries – both in the UK and in the US – lies the creative output and the cultural ephemera of a form of popular entertainment that we have collectively chosen to forget.
This vast collection includes the recordings of hundreds of songs that were hugely popular in their day. Alongside them are thousands of books, posters, theatre programmes, advertisements, children’s toys, Hollywood movies and a significant slice of the early output of the American cartoon animation industry. All of this material – the product of millions of hours of human creative effort – is culturally radioactive. The only people who pay it much attention are historians.
