Wait. Did you hear that right?

Yes, you did – and it was so funny that you just now caught your breath. What the guy onstage said was so unexpected, so dead-on, so real that you couldn’t stop laughing. As Geoff Bennett argues in “Black Out Loud,” these moments of comedy are rooted in a powerful tradition that has shaped culture and society for over a century.

On April 15, 1990, 10-year-old Geoff Bennett was watching TV in his family’s living room when his world was shaken. He’d stumbled upon the debut of In Living Color, the irreverent, hilariously funny sketch show featuring mostly Black entertainers.

Entertainers, in other words, who looked like him.

That show was a first for Bennett. But it wasn’t the only first, by any means.

Black Out Loud’s author Geoff Bennett. Photo by Johnny Shryock, 2024

In the late 1800s, there was minstrelsy, whose cast was usually white people with burnt-cork-blackened faces – until African American entertainer Billy Kersands came along and performed song-and-dance comedy in blackface. Audiences loved him, and he “became the first Black entertainer in America to achieve national celebrity.”

Hot on Kersands’ heels, Bert Williams and George Walker became vaudeville stars in the early 1900s, followed by Stepin Fetchit and his controversial, but very successful, career. Then Hattie McDaniel, who lampooned stereotypes through over-the-top performances in movie roles, became the first Black actor to win an Oscar.

As others made the transition from movies and radio to TV, Rochester (The Jack Benny Show) eased Black characters into friend roles rather than domestic workers. Black comedians began recording their acts on LPs as they moved from live stage to small screen. Some landed their own TV shows, changed popular sketch programming, and made fun of white America right under white America’s noses.

And they made us laugh at ourselves.

“For more than a century,” says Bennett, “Black comedians have been witnesses… And when the world was finally ready to hear the real story of America, it knew exactly where to turn – to America’s conscience: the Black comedian.”

That was you every night you tuned in to your favorite comedy show.

Everybody talked about it the next day. Now, read about it.

You may have favorites not found here, but Geoff Bennett’s work is very thorough: he includes today’s hottest Black comedians and some once-famous, now overlooked. You’ll get to know them, discover quick biographies, surprising facts, and the stars’ notable achievements—all in a lively, sometimes profane, highly enjoyable narrative.

Bonus: Read some of their comedy bits and laugh along with this excellent book.

“Black Out Loud” is a great collection for anyone who devours pop culture or just loves to laugh. It’s one of those books you won’t want to let go, so don’t miss it. No, you shouldn’t hear of that.

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Want more? Then look for “Darkology: Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment” by Rhae Lynn Barnes (Liveright, $39.99), a book that dives deep into two centuries of racism in American entertainment. It’s unsettling, but a must-read for anyone who loves Black performance history.