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The Travel and Travail of Negro Showpeople
Author(s) -
Ford Iris Carter
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
anthropology and humanism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1548-1409
pISSN - 1559-9167
DOI - 10.1525/ahu.2001.26.1.35
Subject(s) - desegregation , storytelling , power (physics) , dimension (graph theory) , sociology , political science , history , narrative , public administration , art , physics , literature , mathematics , quantum mechanics , pure mathematics
African American performers have always been essential cultural commodities for audiences who demand "authenticity." But to meet the demand in the segregated South, how were they to get there? Autobiographies of Negro showpeople located in northern cultural centers before desegregation of public accommodations illustrate the power of storytelling to reveal an important—but largely unexplored—dimension of the African American experience: travel.