A new star in the unlikely guise of Jim Crow is born in 1832, and he became a staple in the repertoire of his creator. The grotesque stereotype of Jim Crow gave substance to the audience’s feelings of superiority and, conversely, confirmed the innate inferiority of the black race (Takacs). Roedigger maintains that blackface entertainment was not merely about race relations but addressed the issue of social relations among whites (123). Rice was neither the first blackface performer nor the last. Had there been a “top of the pops” list back then, his Jim Crow song would have rocketed to the No. 1 spot and hung on.  Its tune buzzed around in the head to be sung or hummed by both whites and blacks who alternately loved and hated this and other minstrelsy songs. Perhaps Rice’s star lined up just right like a modern-day Elvis or the Beatles.  A minor difference would be Rice’s alter ego was a hopping crow, Elvis’ was a howling hound dog, and the Beatles sang of many things, including a singing bird. Strausbaugh maintains in his book, Black Like YOU, that Rice was minstrel's first international super star and, like Elvis or the Beatles, enjoyed living large. He was a ghetto boy who made good, and he was proud of his "Daddy Rice" title. Rice liked to dress up in coats that had gold coins for buttons, and he would rip the buttons from his jacket and throw them to the adoring crowd (97).

         One of the basic elements of Negro minstrelsy at which Rice excelled was burlesque impersonation, and he was particularly adept at Shakespearean burlesque. Shakespeare's English was fair game for Rice when he performed at the olio, the second part of a typical minstrel show. Marc Antony's words were excellent material for Rice's pompous delivery:

"Friends, Romans, Countrymen! Lend me your ears. I will return them next Saturday. I come to bury Caesar, because the times are hard and his folks can't afford to hire an undertaker [. . .] Caesar hath brought many captives home to Rome, who broke rock on the streets, until their ransom did the general's coffers fill. [. . .] Kind friends, sweet friends! I do not want to stir you up to such a flood of mutiny, nor do I want you to go back on Brutus, David Hill, Grover Cleveland, Tom Platt or any of the senators. I merely want you to step on Brutus' neck and keep your feet on it for a week. As it looks like rain, the pall bearers will place the coffin in the "Bier" wagon and will proceed to bury Caesar (Haywood 80).

           Since success of his minstrel performance depended on fresh material, Rice had a never ending source of supply in Shakespeare's plays or scenes. He delivered lines in a bombastic, ignorant, faulty pronunciation kind of way and, in so doing, he was imitating the Negros who he thought to be stupid and slow in picking up on the punch lines.          

          In spite of his super-star status, Rice and his creation, "Jumpin' Jim Crow," faded into oblivion around the 1840's with the wane of the minstrel show itself due in part to economic reasons. Rice's portrayals of overt racism and his message of white superiority were the vilest racial forms of stereotyping. His existence and popularity provided an "irrefutable proof that slavery was a necessary condition for blacks."  Dorman also stated that whatever the influence of  Negro stereotyping on racial attitudes, Rice's career as Jim Crow "Daddy" Rice contributed in a fundamental way to that influence (122). 

           Some historians put the popularity wane of minstrelsy as late as 1870. In any case, by 1919, large minstrel shows were in vogue, such as Haverly's Mastodon Minstrels which had over a 100 performers and lavish stage sets. These productions lent themselves more to vaudeville style rather than the older, simpler form of minstrelsy (History 2). The link to Haverly's provides a look at the troop as it appeared on the Capitol steps in Washington in 1881 for the inauguration of President James A. Garfield.

          After Reconstruction, Jim Crow's name was used by Southern Whites as slang to mean that blacks must be kept in their proper place.

Dan Emmett

          Alexander Saxton, when writing about Blackface Minstrelsy and Jacksonian Ideology, reminds readers that the social content of minstrelsy was shaped in no small way by the social experiences of its purveyors. In addition to T. D. Rice, Saxton gives credit to Dan Emmett as one of the founders of this culture. Emmett was a Northerner who was born in Ohio in 1815. He ran away from home at an early age and became an army drummer. When his youthful age was discovered, he was discharged from service and joined sideshows as a singer of comedic songs done in blackface (116). Emmett is given credit for organizing the first blackface quartet known as the Virginia Minstrels in February of 1843. This performance was a fill-in at the Chatham Theatre in New York. Emmett played the violin, and his three partners played the banjo, bones, and a tambourine. From that time forward, Emmett was a lifelong minstrel performer. He often sang a song called “Dixie’s Land” with the familiar lines of “I wish I was in the land of cotton / Old times there are not forgotten.” This song would eventually become the Confederacy’s national anthem. Emmett toured England with a modicum of success, but soon returned to New York. He was a prolific writer of songs and musical farces (Saxton 127).