The 1960s witnessed among African Americans a wholesale rejection of white power, including the repertoire and iconography of blackface performance. And yet, surprisingly, one finds among some of the most revolutionary Afrocentric artists, critics, and activists of the time a complex, nuanced, even contradictory attitude towards “blacking up.”

In the mid-19th century, European nations consolidated their identities. Leaders de.ned who belonged to the nation and who did not—excluding both ethnic and ideological Others, such as the Roma (“Gypsies”) and nonconforming artists who were identified with the Roma and dubbed “Bohemians.” Understanding how “Bohemians” were dealt with illuminates not only the avantgarde but strategies used to police cultural activism for the last century and a half.