40. The Devil Cooks Up Death 2017-05-12T17:17:29+00:00

40. Black Performances

Blacks Used Early Media in Religious Shows

Blacks used early media, including the magic lantern,  just as whites did. A close up of a broadside for The Devil’s Kitchen shows a black religious flyer for a lantern show in Birmingham, AL. The minister appears to have used commercially available slides, combined with one-of-a-kind images, such as this cartoon of the Devil at work at his stove.

In Stereopticon Lectures, Rev. Baker of The Colored Seventh Day Adventist Church promises “real SERMONS on the screen.”  The sermons were to be held “every Sunday night, rain or shine.”

Baker was probably using slides by Albert Prieger, like the slide shown. Prieger was a lantern slide manufacturer for Seventh Day Adventist churches and Sunday Schools, both black and white.  Prieger’s image depicts a Biblical prophet imagining the things of the future that would foretell the End of Days.

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