Kentucky Darkies Amateur Minstrel Society

The Kentucky Darkies, a white minstrel company in Liverpool, England, performed benefit Negro minstrels in blackface in the late 1800s. There was no connection to the state of Kentucky in the U.S. other than the entertainment marketing value of the perception of happy singing and dancing African Americans in Kentucky.

In 1897, the Kentucky Darkies performed in the Philharmonic Hall "in aid of the funds of the Liverpool Food Association." The Food Association, formed in 1893, went through several name changes before it became known as the League of Welldoers in 1909. The organization did charitable work to help alleviate social problems.

See additional information in "Food Association's Benefit Entertainment," The Liverpool Courier, 5/29/1897, p. 7 (from which the above quotation was taken); "Food Association's Recent Benefit Entertainment," The Liverpool Courier, 6/01/1897, p. 3; and "Kentucky Darkies and Newspaper Criticism," Liverpool Mercury, 8/01/1893, issue 14220.