Hard as it is to believe, America’s first black celebrity was a magician, hypnotist and ventriloquist. AND, he is credited as being America’s first successful stage magician, hypnotist and ventriloquist. Amazingly, some of his antics included climbing a rope and disappearing while performing outdoors and “crawling through a log.”
Even more amazing, he toured the South in the first decade of the 19th Century – when slavery was still legal – and advertised himself as the “Black Yankee.” Richard Potter, a free black born in 1783, was not well-received in some cities in the South. He was banned from Charleston because it was believed his presence would urge slaves to revolt. In Mobile, no hotel would allow him and his wife to rent a room. Did that bother Richard Potter? Nope. He performed in Alabama for 20 days and racked in $4,800 — $115,000 in today’s dollars. His act included knife throwing, wiping his tongue on a hot iron, walking on flames and dancing on eggs without breaking them. He retired to a 175 acre farm and died in 1835.