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The cake walk became a national phenomenon in the late 1800s. These were the faddish and daffy years when whites in blackface performed the dance in the popular minstrel shows that mocked the life of Negroes in the plantation South.
But the original cake walk was in fact a parody in which black people poked fun at the pretentious and dandified style of white society. Blacks who were known as "walkers" would strut about in their best clothes with pails of...