Silas Green Shows

Silas Green Shows.  They were traveling tent shows with live bands comedians, comedic skits of a risqué nature and, chorus girls. They traveled in large circus type tents.  White and Blacks attended these show together sitting on separate side of the tents.  This practice may have varied from town to town depending on the size of the audience of each racial group in that town. 

As my family ran a restaurant and hotel here in Meridian the performers ate and stayed in our businesses.  This also meant that my father frequently got passes to attend the shows.  The shows came to Meridian once a year. When I saw Silas Green Shows I could have been anywhere from four to six years old. The last time they came to Meridian the show was held in the local blacks' only theatre (picture show).  Silas Green was one among several traveling black minstrel shows that would have included other groups like the Rabbit Foot Shows.   Bessie Smith and other early "race recording artist" used to travel with this type of show in the warmer months of the year. 

 You can find a brief description of the Silas Green Show of New Orleans in A History of American American Theatre, by Errol G. Hill and James V. Hatch, Cambridge U Press, 2003 though I think the Rabbit Foot Shows have received more documentation.

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