Sam Lucas

1901 portrait of Lucas

Sam Lucas (August 7, 1840 – January 10, 1916)[1][2] was an American actor, comedian, singer and songwriter. His birth year has also been reported as 1839, 1841, 1848 and 1850.[2][3][4]

Lucas' career began in blackface minstrelsy, but he later became one of the first African Americans to branch out into more serious drama, with roles in seminal works such as The Creole Show and A Trip to Coontown. He was the first black man to portray the role of Uncle Tom on both stage and screen. James Weldon Johnson described him as the "Grand Old Man of the Negro Stage".[5] He was vocal about liberating himself from the minstrel profession and was the only composer of spirituals in his time to present them consistently within the context of jubilee concerts.[6]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference yob1848 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b "Profile of Sam Lucas". IMDb. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  3. ^ Peterson, Bernard L (2001). Profiles of African American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816–1960. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 170.
  4. ^ Southern, Eileen (1997). The Music of Black Americans: A History. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 240.
  5. ^ Johnson (1968). Black Manhattan, p. 90. Quoted in Toll 218.
  6. ^ Graham, Sandra Jean (February 26, 2018). Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 235. ISBN 9780252041631.