While American Black-Face Minstrelsy was notorious for its stereotypical depiction of Blacks in the mid-nineteenth century, the rise of "coon songs" in the last two decades of the nineteenth century revealed even more overtly racist attitudes toward (now free) Blacks in the post-Civil War United States. The purpose of this exercise is to see these attitudes at close hand.

For this assignment you are to use "The African-American Sheet Music Collection 1850-1920" (available via the web link under "American Memory" near the top of the course home page, under the category "Specialized American Music Content Pages"). You will be looking at images, so make sure you have a computer with a good monitor. Access to a good printer may also be useful. In brief, you are to examine a "coon song" (in sheet-music format) for its depiction of its racist attitudes against Blacks. After you have studied the item, you are to prepare a brief typed summary of your findings.

Specifically, you are to do the following:

1. Choose any one of the following songs:
   • "The Belle of Darktown"
   • "The Coffee Colored Coon"
   • "Coon Hollow Capers"
   • "Dar'll Be a Nigger Missin'"
   • "Don't Fool, Dat Black Gal's Mine!"
   • "Hannah! (I Want My Hannah!)"
   • "He's Goin' to Hab a Hot Time Bye an' Bye"
   • "Liza Does You Love Your Coon?"
   • "Looking for a Coon Like Me"
   • "Step Aside You Niggers"
   • "The Black Man from Troy"
   • "The Wedding of the Chinee and the Coon"
   • "You Ain't de Only Coon in Town"
2. Using either the general "Search by Keyword" or the "Title Index," locate the page for the item that you have chosen. You should see a page with a smaller version of the sheet music cover, as well as some additional information about the item and its publication.
3. Click on the image of the first page of the sheet music itself to go to the navigation page. You should see a series of identifications and links at the top of the page, e.g., "Image 1 of 6," "Turn to image [ ]," "Next image," and a series of links to higher quality versions of these same images.
4. Use these navigation buttons and links to view your chosen item. Because of the size of the first image, the text and lyrics for most pages will be too small to read. To improve legibility, use the "Higher quality image" links with each page, and also the "Print Preview." [NB. You need not print out your page unless you want a hard copy, but the images are generally more legible in that format.] Once you have learned how to navigate the images, make sure that you can read the lyrics on every page of the sheet music. If you are unable to obtain legible images, see me for help.
5. Read your song text for obvious and not-so-obvious examples of white racism. Specifically, you should look for (a) Black dialect, (b) derogatory racial names and descriptions, (c) references to things associated with Blacks, (d) references to Black life, and (e) implications that Blacks are less intelligent, child-like, untrustworthy, etc. You need not include every reference that you read, but you should identify a representative sample of the stereotypes in your song. In particular, try to find examples of specific words, dialect spellings, and even general topics for the entire song.
6. In addition to the song itself, examine the sheet music cover and even the advertisements for additional examples of racist attitudes.
7. Prepare a typed summary of at least 400-500 words (in excess of one typed, double-spaced page) that discusses the various ways in which your song displays racist attitudes. NB. while obvious (verbal) racial slurs are significant, you will earn higher marks for identifying less obvious forms of racism on the sheet music.
8. Submit your paper to me via email by 5:00 pm on Monday, 29 March 2004.