In 1929, at the annual rally and picnic for the Lykens-Williams Valley, the program included aviators and parachute jumps, a young lady doing black-face comedy, and an “old fashioned cake walk.”
The following information appeared in the Elizabethville Echo on July 18, 1929:
AVIATORS TO THRILL PICKNIKERS
Aviators of the Beaufort Flying Service have been secured to entertain picnickers who will be in attendance at the annual Lykens-Williams Valley Rally and Picnic in Paxtang Park, Thursday, July 25th [1929].
A big program of sports has been arranged and prizes are to be awarded. Prizes will be given the oldest and youngest in attendance. A cake will be the the gift of a commercial baking company to the association marking the fifth anniversary of its organization. An old fashioned cake walk will be one of the features and coffee will be served free.
The aviators will stage stunting and parachute jumps between four and five o’clock in the afternoon.
The following program has been planned:
Address, Mayor Hoverter, Harrisburg; vocal duet, Sol Bitterman and Harry Bitterman; address, Mr. LeRoy Keene; song, Ashlar Glee Club; address, Mr. James E. Lentz; vocal duet, Miss Alma Lebo and Mrs. Matilda Perie; black-face comedy by Miss Kathleen Turns; piano solo, Miss Ellen Potts; short talk, Dr. John Lehr; music, Flynn Brothers of Lykens; recitation, Mr. John Dando; recitation, Miss Dorothy Fink; step-dance by two prominent ladies of the Upper End.
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A “cake walk” in minstrelsy is a black-face rendition of a dance done on plantations during the slavery period. The original purpose was to mock the slave owner.
However, American writer Amiri Baraka (1934-2014) spoke of the cake walk as follows:
If the cakewalk is a Negro dance caricaturing certain white customs, what is that dance, when, say, a white theater company attempts to satirize it as a Negro dance? I find the idea of white minstrels in black-face satirizing a dance satirizing a dance satirizing themselves a remarkable kind of irony–which, I suppose, is the whole point of minstrel shows. [Wikipedia]
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For other articles on this blog, see Black-Face.
News article was obtained from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.