I became interested in circus and vaudeville history in 1986 while researching “Pitch a Boogie Woogie,” which led to meeting Mattie Sloan in Laurinburg and, ultimately, to an ongoing project of piecing together a narrative of Mose McQuitty’s life on the road as a traveling musician from 1896-1937.  It became apparent early in this process that African-American performers and managers were not often included in standard histories of circuses and vaudeville, that they had, in fact, little in common with what was essentially White circus history and White vaudeville history. At the time, Henry Sampson and Sheldon Harris were the trailblazers into Black vaudeville that helped me in early directions, before encountering the amazing, detailed and exhaustive work of Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, who’ve done especially important research in the Back sideshow bands attached to White circuses as part of a minstrel show–or, what I learned early on to call “Black tented vaudeville.”

Still, in the end,”Pitch” seemed more local history than circus & vaudeville, although its pages also include details on Winstead’s Mighty Minstrels; Irvin C. Miller and his many shows, including the Brown Skin Models; and Billy Cornell and some of those who played with their shows. The intersections among these performers and their various shows continue to reveal new details about their worlds. Their convergence in Greenville during the summer of 1947 provides a decidedly local focus, on a couple of blocks in West Greenville during the last of its boom years.

I’ve been a member of the Circus Historical Society for over 25 years. It’s a terrific organization, filled with interesting and eccentric people, many of whom have worked in circuses and who have encouraged my research as it branched out to Circus World, which before I met MoseMcQuitty’s routebook was an alien one to me. Al Stencell was the first of these I met, years ago, when he came to Greenville to try to track down a Tarboro woman who had traveled with him on shows. Circus World folks are among the most obsessive documenters, and the society’s preservation of so many routes offers a virtually infinite number of potential snapshots into small town America during the first half of the 20th century. 

This chronology of African-American band leaders is an on-going project, and I welcome input: alex@rafountain.com

Award
2016 Stuart Thayer Prize, for “Mose McQuitty’s Band and Minstrel Days, 1899-1937” (published in Bandwagon), presented by the Circus Historical Society for Most Outstanding Contribution to Circus History for the year.

Article
“Mose McQuitty’s Band and Minstrel Days, 1899-1937.” Bandwagon: The Journal of the Circus Historical Society 60.3 (2016): 6-47.

“Noon Parade and Midnight Ramble: Traveling Tent Shows in North Carolina, 1900-50.” Good Country People I.1 (Spring 1995): 61-90.

“Classic Blues under Gigantic Tents.” Living Blues 24.3 (June 1993) 46-49.

“The African-American Traveling Minstrel Show” Living Blues 24.2 (April 1993) 36-41.

“Micheaux, Vaudeville, and Black Cast Film.” Black Film Review 7.4: 6-9, 36.

“Mose McQuitty’s Unknown Career: A Personal History of Black Music in America.” Black Music Research Bulletin. 11.2 (Fall 1989): 1-5.

Scholarly papers & presentations
“Rusco & Hockwald’s Georgia Minstrels of 1926,” Nevada Historical Society, Reno, NV. 7 January 2009.

“Behind the Masks: Early African-American Vaudeville,” Mississippi Humanities Commission, Port Gibson, MS; July 3, 2006.

“Understanding Vaudeville: Early Black Entertainers, Their Roots, and Their Influences on American Entertainment.” NEH Summer Institute “Behind the Veil: African American Life in the Jim Crow South.” Center for Documentary Studies, Duke U, Durham, NC: 17 July 1991.

“Beyond TOBY Time and Shuffle Along: Where the other Black Entertainers Were.” Popular Culture Association. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: 9 March 1990.

“Early North Carolina Film Documents: Restoration and Preservation.” Popular and American Culture in the South. Knoxville, TN: 9 Oct.ober 1988

“Silas Green from New Orleans: Last of the Great Traveling Minstrel Shows.” Popular Culture Association. New Orleans, LA: 24 March 1988.

“‘Pitch a Boogie Woogie’: Text and Re-Text.” Florida State Film and Video Conference. Tallahassee, FL: 30 January 1988.

“Traveling Man: 40 Years on the Road with Mose McQuitty.” Popular Culture Association. Montreal, Canada: 28 March 1987.

–July 13,2025