A Barrel Full of Laughs, A Life of Sorrow

A Barrel Full of Laughs, A Life of Sorrow

According to some Negro folk tales, at one time slaves were not permitted to laugh in public. Legend says that

 if slaves found something to be funny and there were white people around, they were to run to the nearest “laughing barrel” and wipe the smile off their face before they peered out. Many believe the practice was the genesis of the term “barrel of laughs”

Wesley Brown’s award-winning novel, "Darktown Strutters," gives a vivid description of the practice that implied there was a potential of insult to white people who may be in the presence of black folks laughing. The unspoken insinuation that blacks might possibly be 'snickering' at white people. Presumably, the unwritten Jim Crow law was enacted on Southern plantations that did not permit whites to be insulted by Negro laughter.

As a side note, Brown also explains the term Jim Crow derived from a minstrel song entitled “Jump Jim Crow.” The book also tells of the inhumanities suffered by slaves before, during and after the practice died out thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation, even though many of the laws continued well into the 1950’s.

As the story goes, during slavery times, blacks were not allowed to laugh on many plantations. When the urge to laugh became irrepressible, the slaves had a “laughing barrel” into which they would lean way down, place their head in the barrel and laugh; then go back to whatever it was they were doing.

Here one discovers that before and even after the American Civil War, there were such things as barrels placed around the streets of southern cities or the pathways of plantations for black people to stick their heads into should they get the urge to laugh in public. It seems that local white people didn’t want to hear their laughter, lest they gain the sense that it might be aimed at them.

Author and poet Maya Angelou, in her book “Discovering Family Roots in Slavery,” writes about how on many plantations slaves were not allowed to laugh. There was a rule against it. So, when the urge to laugh became uncontrollable, when the urge to laugh became irrepressible, they had what they called “the laughter barrel.” At the moment when they couldn’t hold it in any longer they would, under the pretext of getting something out of the barrel, lean way down inside and let it all out. They would laugh and laugh and laugh, then wipe the smile off their face and go back to what they were doing.

“Many churches had ‘shouting barrels’ into which overjoyed slaves would place their heads in order not to disturb the church services,” Daniel Lane and Roy Cunningham write in their book, “Notable Blacks of the Pee Dee Section of South Carolina.”

There is little hard evidence to prove the stories other than those passed along in the oral tradition of the familiar slave narrative. A book titled, “Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel," edited by Alan Dundes speaks of “laughing barrels at least eight times. Although the book is a compilation of slave lore, legend and folk tales, there is some reason to believe the stories were true. Many believe the tale is not founded in truth, but considering the times, along with the way slaves were treated, it is not hard to imagine such a course of action.

Making slaves laugh in a barrel isn’t as far-fetched as one might think. As ridiculous as the practice seems, there were others rules that were just as silly and many of them were dangerous. In the Deep South, blacks had to either cross the street or get off the sidewalk to allow white pedestrians safe passage. Failure to do so could result in a beating or worse.

Clearing the sidewalk was just one of the many humiliations heaped upon slaves and later during the Jim Crow era. One such heinous and unwritten law included “reckless eyeballin,” which fell harshly upon any black man who had the nerve to look at a white woman. Emmet Till fell victim to such an unwritten law when he supposedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman. Till was beaten, shot and dropped in the river, his body weighted with a fan blade tied around his neck with barbed wire.

Sadly, I actually had people in my family who talked of it and were afraid of talking too loudly or even laughing around white men even though they escaped the South and lived in Chicago. Emitt Till was killed while I was in Chicago. This is not ancient history. They had "laugh barrels" in the South for Negroes to stick their heads in because white men assumed blacks were laughing at them. It is difficult to put that kind of treatment behind you even though you know it is poisonous.

Personal experience with segregated movie theaters, swimming pools and restaurants were small insults, but helped contribute to internal anger among Negroes. Although seemingly harmless, more virulent practices existed such as never addressing a white man by any other name unless prefixed with "sir." The same applied to white women, but they were to be called "mam." On the other hand, blacks were expected to answer to names like "boy or uncle," while women were called "gal" or "girl."

Writing in the Texas Monthly, in 1985, Gary Cartwright, delivered a story titled, “The Final Gun.” In the story, Cartwright writes, “There was a barrel in Saratoga called the laughing barrel, and blacks who felt themselves in danger of laughing were required to stick their heads in it.” Saratoga is located thirty-eight miles northwest of Beaumont, TX.

Whether or not “laughing barrels” existed or are just part of black folk lore probably makes no difference other than to add insult to the injury slaves faced regularly in the South. However, based on previous Jim Crow rules, more than likely “laughing barrels” existed, as it seemed that no humiliation was too low to be heaped upon black men and women.

Painting from the Winfred Rembert, Caint to Caint Collection, 2010