Black History Month: Bert Williams

Bert Williams

It's Black History Month, and I don't know much, but I want to learn more about how The Civil Rights Movement not only helped shape our nation culturally and politically, but especially how it shaped the arts. I thought it would be best to start at the "beginning" of modern musical theatre with someone who I've found really interesting through my research. Egbert Austin Williams was born in 1874 in The Bahamas and came to be one of the most influential black American entertainers of all time.

As you look at the timeline of musical theatre's evolution, you come upon minstrel shows which grew in popularity in the 1800s. Minstrel shows, in short and shameful summary, were white entertainers in blackface caricaturing black people in song, dance and skits. But by the later half of the century, black entertainers were starting their own minstrel troupes and performing for white audiences. In 1893, Bert joined Martin and Selig's Mastodon Minstrels where he met George Walker. Bert and George, like all black entertainers at the time, had no opportunity to perform on stage save for minstrel shows. So they used their limited stage time to their advantage and become a really successful comedic duo.

George Walker

It is heartbreaking to consider that so many talented black entertainers were willing to participate in minstrel shows - especially since their participation was seen by white audiences as confirmation that these horrible stereotypes - invented by white audiences - were true. But it was the only way that white audiences would accept black performers on stage. Bert, the brilliant man that he was, found a way to slowly break the mold of the typical minstrel character by bringing humanity to the forefront. Mel Watkins, a cultural historian, said:  "Everyone else played that character as a total buffoon and it was totally derogatory. [Bert] Williams invested some humanity into the character, made him a living human being and made him someone that people could be sympathetic to. You laughed at him, but you also sympathized with his plight." He played a "decent soul triumphing over adversity through humbled, dogged persistence.*"

Due to the popularity of George and Bert's act, in 1903, they played the lead characters in the first full-length Broadway musical written and performed by African Americans - In Dahomey, a musical about two conmen who plan to move to Africa and colonize Dahomey. In Dahomey was so well-received it played Buckingham Palace that same year! In 1906, the duo had another hit with Abyssinia where Bert's famous song "Nobody" comes from. "Nobody" would become part of Bert's act until his death.



In 1909, George Walker became so ill that he stopped performing and Bert Williams had to branch out on his own. In 1910, Bert became a Follies star when Florenz Ziegfeld offered him a contract for Ziegfeld's annual show. This was the first time that a black entertainer would perform as an equal with a white ensemble on Broadway. It was in the Follies (which he would perform in until 1919) that he was able to present a broader range rather than the stereotypical characters expected in a minstrel show. But even then, as one of the most well-known vaudeville performers of the time, Bert was expected to perform in blackface, use the back entrances to hotels and theaters and he couldn't be onstage alone with a white woman. It's no wonder then, that W.C. Fields (his friend and contemporary) said:  "Bert Williams was the funniest man I ever saw and the saddest man I ever knew."

I really enjoyed learning about Bert Williams and his ability to persevere as a black entertainer in a country biased against him. I look forward to learning more about black musical theatre history throughout this month and hope you'll join me.


*All of the information for this post was found in "Broadway:  The American Musical" by Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon and from this great article on HowlRound by Alyssa Taubin.