New Books in History Es-pranza Humphrey, "Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen" (Poster House Museum, 2026)
May 12, 2026
Es-pranza Humphrey, Assistant Curator of Collections at Poster House Museum who researches Black theater and film material culture. She shares how oversized posters preserve performances and lost films. She recounts rare finds like a six-foot Williams & Walker poster, the ethics of showing blackface artifacts, and how marketing ‘‘All Colored’’ casts and race films shaped Black performance history.
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Build Exhibitions Around Available Artifacts
- Focus curation by starting with what you can actually access and build stories from available material.
- Humphrey prioritized all-Black productions and used relationships with collectors to locate rare posters and printing blocks for the theater section.
Uncle Tom's Cabin Posters Reveal Minstrelsy Distortions
- Uncle Tom's Cabin posters show how white actors in blackface shaped early public images of Black characters.
- Tent-show adaptations emphasized comic figures like Topsy, often played by white actresses in blackface, changing Stowe's abolitionist intent.
Buying A Blackface Makeup Lot To Exhibit Contextually
- Humphrey purchased a 'blackface lot' including burnt cork, grease paint, and pancake makeup and debated display ethics.
- She ultimately exhibited the lot (including Max Factor pancake labeled 'black minstrel') with contextual labels to educate visitors.
