Photograph: Actors Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll in blackface, as radio characters Amos 'n Andy. Life magazine. 1935.

Description with photograph: "Radio may not be a visual medium, but blackface found a home there, too. Amos 'n Andy was the most popular radio program in the nation in the '30 and '40s, with both white and black audiences. It featured white actors -- Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll -- vocally imitating African-American characters. (They wore blackface for publicity photos and personal appearances.) When the show moved to television, after World War 2, black actors were cast. But times had changed. And so had African-Americans.

When the NAACP and other civil rights organizations objected to the demeaning stereotypes on which Amos 'n Andy was built, people in positions of power began to listen. CBS took it off the prime-time schedule in 1953.

Amos 'n Andy's cancellation marked the beginning of the end for blackface. It certainly didn't disappear overnight, but by the mid-'60s it was something most people found embarrassing, at the very least.

Literal blackface has disappeared, except in the hands of the clueless, the shameless, and the avowedly racist. Metaphorical blackface may be a different story. I'll let you make up your own minds about acts like the Blues Brothers and Eminem."

Narrative source: https://johnedwinmason.typepad.com/j