Masking Modernity: Black Performance and the Struggle for a Modern Identity in the Progressive Era South

Centering on the concept of dual identity, my thesis examines how the larger black community in the South adjusted to modernity through acts of masking. More specifically, this work analyzes minstrelsy and jubilee spirituals in an effort to explain what these performances meant for African Americans’ perceptions of modernity in the Progressive Era South. While previous scholars have tended to narrow their focus on the artistic productions of blacks in northern metropolises, I argue that southern blacks did not merely ride the coattails of northern artists, but took an active role in producing, negotiating, and responding to their own cultural representations.