Photograph:Bing Crosby in blackface. A still from the movie "Holiday Inn" (1942).

Description with photograph: "The photo above is from 1942. A year later, Crosby again appeared in blackface, starring in the movie Dixie as Dan Emmett, the most popular blackface minstrel of the mid-nineteenth century and the man who was credited with composing the song "Dixie." You can read all about it in the June 5th, 1943 edition of Life.

Fred Astaire (in Swingtime, 1936), Mickey Rooney (in Babes in Arms, 1939), and many of the biggest actors of their day also appeared in blackface. The practice continued well into the '40s. And that's the point. What shocks us today was good fun (as most people saw it) not very long ago.

These days, blackface scenes are often cut from old movies when they're shown on television in an attempt to protect us from our own history".