Dacw mam yn dwad, ar ben y garreg wen Rhwybeth yn ei ffedog, a phiser ar ei phen;
Y fuwch yn y beudy, yn brefu am y llo,
Y llo'r ochr arall, yn gwaeddai 'Jim Cro'
Jim Cro crystyn, one, two, four
Mochyn Bach yn eistedd, yn ddel ar y stôl.

(There's mam coming, over the white stile;
Something in her apron and a pitcher on her head;
The cow's in the byre, lowing for her calf,
The calf is on the other side, shouting 'Jim Crow'
Jim Crow crust, one two four;
The little pig is sitting, pretty on the stool.)

"In 1895, in a publication called Cymru'r Plant, (Volume 4) there appeared Dacw mam yn dŵad, one of the most popular of Welsh nursery rhymes in which mention was made of a blackbird named Jim Cro. The words in the nursery rhyme do not make a lot of sense but are enjoyable nevertheless and are a favourite with children. At the time of publication the term Jim Cro (or Jim Crow in English) was in fact a well known term of the day.

Throughout the 19th century a song called Jump Jim Crow was well known in America, England and Scotland. I can only assume that it was also well known in Wales. Jim Crow was at that time a derogatory term for a black person. Later in the century the term Jim Crow took on a slightly different meaning in referring to the infamous Jim Crow laws in America, which enforced a brutal segregation of blacks and whites.

In New York in the 1830s Thomas 'Daddy' Rice had observed a negro, Jim Crow, dancing for eels in Catherine Market. As he danced he sang the following refrain.

Wheel About, turn about, do jus' so
and ebry time I wheel about, I jump Jim Crow.

Rice appropriated and transformed this song into one of the earliest and most popular minstrel songs. In this way he helped to inaugurate the paradoxical practice whereby white minstrels frequently made stage hits out of bits of black songs, spreading them through the southern states where they were heard for the first time by slaves, who in their turn reintegrated them into black tradition. Thus in North Carolina negroes shucking corn sang a song virtually identical to the one Rice had heard more than 80 years earlier:

First upon yo' heel top
Den upon yo'toe
Ev'ry time I turn around
I jump Jim Crow

Before the turn of the century the practice of blacking up was popular along the north Wales coast. Minstrels sang to packed audiences far away from its origins in American slavery. The Harry Reynolds Minstrels played to a huge audience on the promenade in Colwyn Bay and in Rhyl; E H Williams' Merry Men stood before a wooden hut and entertained the public in comic sketches (1899). In Llandudno Perry and Allan's Happy Valley Minstrels made two or three performances a day. Jack Hedderick played the 'Swell Coon' and Loure Kerns played the 'Dandy Coon'. These minstrels were probably part of the first mass culture and the origin of today's pop music. 'Blacking up' was all the rage.

In 1927 Al Jolson blacked up and starred in the first talkie film, The Jazz Singer, and his rendition of 'Mammy' in 1930s America led to him being dubbed the greatest entertainer in the world.

In the 1960s as a child I can recall The Black and White Minstrels on the television every Saturday night, though I had not then developed any notion of a racial consciousness. Black people were conveyed as happy-go-lucky and having a nice time 'pickin' cotton' and 'the ole folks back home.' - sentimental songs that masked the reality of black people in America at that time.

The minstrel tradition is ancient and blacking up was common in Shakespeare's time. One of the most famous minstrel poets in Wales was Taliesin who entertained the king at Deganwy Castle. The crow in Welsh mythology could well have become a racial epithet, as Jim Cro. Slaves on slave ships were often called crows, and though it is difficult to be definitive, a black person might have been likened to a crow because of colour and mouth shape, in the same way that white people were referred to as 'palefaces' by the native American Indians.

In the 19th century minstrelsy was entertainment, innocent fun with 'laughable sketches' and it is likely that today people would say the same thing. I for one still feel uncomfortable with it. For me it still raises a question of the right to speak (or sing) for black people. The pressure on black people to appear as happy and having a nice time is still embedded in our psyche. Historically a white man appropriates a black man's song and is hugely successful. He entertains the world while the authentic voice of the black person is often unheard."