Bert Williams (November 12, 1874 – March 4, 1922) was a Bahamian-born American entertainer, one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. While some sources have credited him as being the first Black man to have a leading role in a film with Darktown Jubilee in 1914, other sources have credited actor Sam Lucas with this same distinction for a different 1914 film, the World Film Company's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Ebony stated that "Darktown Follies was the first attempt of an independent film company to star a black actor in a movie", and credited the work as beginning a period in independent American cinema that explored "black themes" within works made for African-American audiences by independent producers.
Williams was by far the best-selling Black recording artist before 1920. In 1918, the New York Dramatic Mirror called Williams "one of the great comedians of the world."New York Dramatic Mirror, December 7, 1918.
Williams was a key figure in the development of African-American entertainment. In an age when racial inequality and stereotyping were commonplace, he became the first Black person to take a lead role on the Broadway stage and did much to push back racial barriers during his three-decade-long career. Fellow vaudevillian W. C. Fields, who appeared in productions with Williams, described him as "the funniest man I ever saw—and the saddest man I ever knew."Wintz, Cary D., Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Routledge (2004), p. 1210, .
Early life Williams was born in Nassau, Bahamas, on November 12, 1874, to Frederick Williams Jr. and his wife Julia.See Register of Births, St. Matthews Parish, Nassau, Bahamas, November 12, 1874, entry #24; see also 1920 U.S Federal Census; interview with Bert Williams, Chicago Record-Herald, September 25, 1910; interview with Bert Williams, New York World, June 27, 1903.Contrary to occasional assertions that Antigua was Bert Williams's place of birth, the case for The Bahamas is now accepted by most scholars and biographers as irrefutable. The record is clear that he was born in Nassau, The Bahamas, on November 12, 1874, to Frederick Williams Jr. and his wife Julia (née Moncur), both of them natives of The Bahamas. This is verified by the Register of Births for St. Matthews Parish, Nassau, The Bahamas (ref. entry # 24), showing November 12, 1874, at Nassau as the date and place of birth. Bert's Bahamian origins are also confirmed by the (1920) 14th Census of the United States in which the "actor" Bert Williams working in the "theatre", a resident of New York City, is described as a native of The Bahamas along with his mother, Julia Williams, who was listed as living at the time of the Census with Bert and his wife, Lottie née Thompson (ref. enumeration dated January 7, 1920, for Enumeration District No. 1353, Sheet No. 8 B – lines 80, 81, 82). Bert's father's place of birth is also listed as The Bahamas in the same Census although he was by then deceased. (See also Bert's father's birth certificate of October 5, 1850, Registry of Births, Registry of Records, Nassau; also his death certificate April 1, 1912, NYMA (New York), showing his place of birth as The Bahamas. Williams’s paternal grandparents, Frederick Williams Sr. and Emeline Armbrister, are listed on birth certificates as being natives of The Bahamas. Williams acknowledged his Bahamian origins in an interview published in New York World on June 27, 1903, following his command performance in London before the British king, when he said: "It was the proudest moment of my life ... to appear before my sovereign, for I am British born, hailing from The Bahamas." He again confirmed his Bahamian origins in an interview with the Chicago Record-Herald, September 25, 1910. In his petition for naturalization as a citizen of the US, he listed his place of birth as The Bahamas. At the age of either two or three, Williams permanently emigrated with his parents to the US. Their names all appear in the 1880 United States Federal Census. They are shown as residents of New York City, and Bert (“Egbert”) is listed as five years old at the time. Having made his way to California by his late teens, he joined different West Coast minstrel shows, including Martin and Selig's Mastodon Minstrels in 1893 San Francisco, where he first met his future professional partner, George Walker.Sampson, Henry T. Blacks in Black and White: A Source Book on Black Films, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. (1997), p. 264. .
Williams and Walker performed song-and-dance numbers, comic dialogues and skits and humorous songs. They fell into stereotypical vaudevillian roles: originally Williams portrayed a slick conniver, while Walker played the "dumb coon" victim of Williams's schemes.Brooks, Tim, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890–1919, University of Illinois Press, 2004, p. 105. . They discovered that they got a better reaction by switching roles and subverting expectations. The sharp-featured and slender Walker eventually developed a persona as a strutting dandy, while the stocky Williams played the languorous oaf. Despite his thickset physique, Williams was a master of body language and physical "stage business." A New York Times reviewer wrote: "He holds a face for minutes at a time, seemingly, and when he alters it, bring[s] a laugh by the least movement.""Dahomey on Broadway", The New York Times, February 19, 1903.
In late 1896, the pair were added to The Gold Bug, a struggling musical. The show did not survive, but Williams & Walker got good reviews and were able to secure higher profile bookings. They headlined the Koster and Bial's vaudeville house for 36 weeks in 1896–97, where their spirited version of the cakewalk helped popularize the dance. The pair performed in burnt-cork blackface, as was customary at the time, billing themselves as "Two Real Coons" to distinguish their act from the many white minstrels also performing in blackface. Williams also made his first recordings in 1896, but none is known to survive. They participated in a "Benefit for New York's Poor" held on February 9, 1897, at the Metropolitan Opera House, their only appearance at that theater."Monster All Star Benefit! Benefit for New York's Poor. Metropolitan Opera House: 02/9/1897," MetOpera Database CID:18300 (accessed 24 May 2019).
While playing off the "coon" formula, Williams & Walker's act and demeanor subtly undermined it as well. Camille Forbes wrote, "They called into question the possible realness of blackface performers who only emphasized their artificiality by recourse to burnt cork; after all, Williams did not really need the burnt cork to be Black," despite his lighter skin complexion. He would pull on a wig full of kinky hair to help conceal his wavy hair.Forbes, Camille F., Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway, and the Story of America's First Black Star, Basic Civitas Books, 2008, p. 59. Terry Waldo noted the layered irony in their cakewalk routine, which presented them as mainstream Blacks performing a dance in a way that lampooned whites who had mocked a Black dance that originally satirized plantation whites' ostentatiously fussy mannerisms.Waldo, Terry, This Is Ragtime, Da Capo Press, 1991, p. 25. The pair also made sure to present themselves as immaculately groomed and classily dressed in their publicity photos, which were used for advertising and on the covers of sheet music promoting their songs. Thus, they drew a contrast between their real-life comportment and the comical characters they portrayed onstage. This aspect of their act was ambiguous enough that some Black newspapers criticized the duo for failing to uplift the dignity of their race.
In 1899, Williams surprised his partner George Walker and his family when he announced he had recently married Charlotte ("Lottie") Thompson, a singer with whom he had worked professionally, in a very private ceremony. Lottie was a widow eight years Bert's senior. Thus, the match seemed odd to some who knew the gregarious and constantly traveling Williams, but all who knew them considered them a uniquely happy couple, and the union lasted until his death. The Williamses never had children biologically, but they adopted and reared three of Lottie's nieces. They also frequently sheltered orphans and foster children in their homes.
Williams & Walker appeared in a succession of shows, including A Senegambian Carnival, A Lucky Coon, and The Policy Players. Their stars were on the ascent, but they still faced vivid reminders of the limits placed on them by white society. In August 1900, in New York City, hysterical rumors of a white detective having been shot by a Black man erupted into an uncontained riot. Unaware of the street violence, Williams & Walker left their theater after a performance and parted ways. Williams headed off in a fortunate direction, but Walker was yanked from a streetcar by a white mob and was beaten.
Sons of Ham and In Dahomey
The following month, Williams & Walker had their greatest success to date with Sons of Ham, a broad farce that did not include any of the extreme "darkie" stereotypes that were then common. One of the show's songs, "Miss Hannah from Savannah," even touched upon class divisions within the Black community. The pair had already begun to transition away from racial minstrel conventions to a fuller human style of comedy. In 1901, they recorded 13 discs for the Victor Talking Machine Company. Some of these, such as "The Phrenologist Coon", were standard blackface material, but the financial lament "When It's All Going Out and Nothing Coming In" was race-blind and became one of Williams's best-known songs. Another Williams composition, "Good Morning Carrie", was covered by many artists, becoming one of the biggest hits of 1901. These discs existed only in pressings of fewer than 1,000 and were not heard by many listeners. Sons of Ham ran for two years.Forbes, Introducing Bert Williams (2008), p. 23.
In September 1902, Williams & Walker debuted their next vehicle, In Dahomey, a full-length musical written, directed and performed by an all-Black cast. It was an even bigger hit. In 1903 the production, with music by composer Will Marion Cook, book by Shipp, and lyrics by poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, moved to New York City.Charters, Ann. Nobody: The Story of Bert Williams (The MacMillan Company, London: 1970), p. 69. Part of the inspiration for the show was Williams's copy of a 1670 book, Africa, in which author John Ogilby traced the history of the continent's tribes and peoples. "With this volume, I could prove that every Pullman porter is the descendant of a king," said Williams.Quoted from 1912 interview in Green Book Magazine, in Louis Chude-Sokei. The Last "Darky": Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora, Duke University Press, 2006, p. 168.