African-American Humor: The Best Black Comedy From Slavery To Today is a collection of anecdotes, jokes, sayings, and mini-biographies of influential African-American comedians that provide a broad reflection of the African-American experience from slavery until modern times. With history as a backdrop, author Mel Watkins, shows how humor can provide unique social commentary, and a link to understanding different cultural experiences and issues that are considered “socially uncomfortable.”

Starting during slavery, Watkins shows how slaves expressed their thoughts and experiences of the society they lived in. Many of the stories and quips of the time period focus on contemporary racial stereotypes, either ridiculing the pompous attitude of Whites towards slaves, or mocking their own cultural idiosyncrasies.

This dual focus is a continual trend throughout the book. The content changes as history unfolds, and the message becomes increasingly more unrestricted as society becomes more accepting.

The next period Watkins explores is from emancipation to the roaring twenties.  Here are some selected excerpts from the period that show some of the common folk sayings of the time period:

Post slavery aphorisms

• Path wid de deepest footprints ain’t de only road to heben.
• De rich git richer and de po’ git children.

Dat’s harmony

Mister Schubert’s serenade is grand,
I certainly love to hear a big brass band
Play Sousa’s marches by the score.
And I likes good opera, and what is more,
That pleasing melody in F
Is shoo’ some music-well, I guess.
But folks makes a mistake you see
When they say that’s all to harmony.

Chorus
‘Cause when your wife says, “Come to your dinner, John,”
Dat’s harmony.
When you just gits a whiff of what she’s bringing’ in,
Dat’s harmony.
Wid all due credit to a big brass band,
De sweetest sweet music in de land
Is when you hear de sizzle of de frying’ pan.
Boy, dat’s harmony

Sayings and observations

• Don’t stan’ ‘roun’ waitin’ fuh somethin’ tuh turn up- git out an’ turn up somethin’.
• I always did think a whole lot uv ole Noah an’ I willin’ tuh give him de benefit uv de doubt an’ say dat maybe dey slipped in, but if dey didn’t slip den ole Noah either didn’t have as much sense as he needed or else he wuz drunk at de time when he passed a male an’ female mosquito into de Ark long wid de rest a de pairs a varmints.
• Somebody made a great mistake when dey gived de cat nine lives an’ de chicken jes one.

The final two periods covered in the book are referred to as the Harlem Renaissance to the fifties and the Civil Rights to the millennium.

These periods continue to highlight the evolution of African-American humor, displaying more diverse topics and perspectives. For example, the Harlem Renaissance provided a platform for African-American writers and poets to share talents and humor as well. The audiences African-American comedians performed in front of also began to change. Traditionally, African-Americans didn’t perform for White crowds, unless it was a minstrel show. On the occasion they were able to perform a stand-up routine, they often tailored their content so it wouldn’t provoke any hostilities. This self-restraint wasn’t used in front of African-American crowds. However, as time progressed and society became less segregated and more accepting, this differentiation wasn’t viewed as necessary.

One of the first comedians to really have cross-over appeal amongst African-Americans and Whites was Dick Gregory:

Dick Gregory – Black Rioters

You know, I’d like you youngsters to do me a favor. One day this week or next week, first chance you get, go by the library and copy down the Declaration of Independence. Don’t read it, just copy it … Here’s what I want you to do for me after you copy down the Declaration of Independence. I want you to keep the Declaration with you twenty-four hours a day. Never be caught without that Declaration.

And here’s the favor I want you to do for me. When the riot season open up again … Can you believe this old stinking system done programmed black folks into believing we got a riot season, July through August. Last year we didn’t show up and the whole country got upset, “Where were they?” Yeah, we didn’t show up last July and August and everybody got uptight, “Where were you all? We had the tanks waiting for you.” […]

Now, here’s the favor I’d like you to do for me. When riot season open up, I’d like for you to run home, get round your momma and daddy. And you black kids go home too ’cause you know you got some niggers living in those houses with you that think more degenerate and more corrupt than the Ku Klux Klan could ever think, and you do know what I’m talkin’ about.

And get your television set and put it in the middle of the room. And then turn on the evening news cause their gonna show them niggers riotin’, and lootin’, and sockin’ it to the town. After you get the news on, turn on Huntley and Brinkley ’cause they get close-ups. Yeah, them other two networks, they try to cover the riots in helicopters ’cause they scared, you know. […]

Now after you get Huntley and Brinkley on, and they be showing them niggers rioting, at that point run upstairs and get your Mom and Dad and bring ’em down and put ’em right in front of the television set. Just let them look, look at them niggers burn the town. Just listen to their reaction. You’ve heard it before. Then after you’ve heard enough of it, now the favor I want you to do me, I want you to go up and turn the sound off the television, pull out your Declaration of Independence and with the sound turned off so they can’t hear nothin’ just look at them black folks just loot and burn the town down. At that point, I want you to move away in back of your parents and while they’re looking at them cats burn, I want you to read your Declaration of Independence as loud as you can read it. And maybe for the first time them fools will understand what they lookin’ at.

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF EVIDENT. THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL AND ENDOWED BY THE CREATOR WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS. THAT WHEN THESE RIGHTS ARE DESTROYED OVER LONG PERIODS OF TIME IT IS YOUR DUTY TO DESTROY OR ABOLISH THAT GOVERNMENT.

American History

Now, I know at first them old fools is gonna assume that was some message Malcolm X left for Rap Brown. But I know with a minimum amount of persuasion you can teach them fools that was their beloved Declaration of Independence.

Yeah, that one with that mistake on it. The one where they forgot to write for white only. You know as funny as that may seem, you know we dumb enough that if you didn’t put white only on it, we dumb enough to read it and believe that the Declaration of Independence was written for all Americans.

But when we do what it says to do after long periods of injustice, you call us hoodlums and thugs, we realize, for the first time, that the Declaration of Independence was written for you. Why didn’t you label it so we would know? And then get it out of my black ghetto. […]

And after you get that Declaration out of my community. Real quick run and get that, that filthy white boy American history book out my ghetto. ‘Cause let me tell you something. There’s no way in the world you can expect niggers to behave, you keep makin’ us read your history.

Baby, your history tells me that from the time you landed on Plymouth Rock, you shot and murdered your way all the way across to California. Are you serious, you really think you can give me that and think I’m gonna behave?

Have you ever read your history book You think George Washington made the history book because he was a good preacher and he learned how to sing, “We Shall Overcome,” and he went around preaching nonviolence? He made your history book because he kicked the hell out of the British. Killed every one of them he got his hands on. […]

I sure wish you white folks would read your history […]

Then you run around and tell me to have respect for the police and give me that old history book. You showed me in your history book, you didn’t have no respect for the police. Yeah, it’s in there. Said in the early days when the British was the police, a white boy by the name of Paul Revere, rode through the white community and said, “Get a gun, white folks. Police is comin’.” You can understand the White Panthers, can’t you? But the Black Panthers make you forget your history, don’t they? […]

Let me tell you something. If you’re gonna loot and take tea that don’t belong to you and then tell me in your history book it was a Boston Tea Party, then every time a nigger take a television set, call that a Saturday Night Fish Fry.

As the book continues and eventually concludes, it includes extended excerpts of comedians that followed in Gregory’s path that had widespread appeal as well, such as Richard Pryor and Chris Rock. A particular favorite of mine, mentioned briefly in the book, is Dave Chappelle. Following his career, I was able to really appreciate the genius of the profession. Humor and comedians are capable of loosening up sensitive issues to a point where people can laugh and understand alternative perspectives, something I believe is valuable for creating a more just and tolerable society.