Today, the term Jim Crow carries the stigma of its association with the repressive segregation laws and customs that arose after Reconstruction ended in 1877. However, the fiddle tune Jump Jim Crow is from a much earlier period.
The picture above is a poster that depicts Rice performing in character as Jim Crow. The performance may appear grotesque to modern eyes, but in its day it was wildly popular.
Rice is credited with starting the theatrical form of blackfaced white minstrels who caricatured the singing and dancing of slaves. Minstrel shows peaked in popularity between 1850 and 1870.
see also Minstrel Show Notes
Jim Crow was a character created and first performed in blackface by Thomas Dartmouth Daddy Rice at the Park Theater in New York in 1828. It demonstrates that tastelessness in the music
business is not a new phenomenon.
Rice claimed that his inspiration was an elderly black man he found singing this tune near a stage door one night. Rice's performance consisted of a song and dance that included an energetic jump off of the stage floor while singing.
First on de heel tap,
Den on the toe
Every time I wheel about
I jump Jim Crow.
Wheel about and turn about
En do j's so.
And every time I wheel about,
I jump Jim Crow.
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