Lew Johnson

This was due to his keeping well away from the lucrative markets dominated by white owners.

[2] He primarily toured in the Midwestern and Western United States, playing countless one-nighters in rural settlements.

The people in these areas could be racist (perhaps more than in the East), which made the itinerant lifestyle a hard one for Johnson and his minstrels.

[3] Johnson made a brief venture into the Eastern market in 1886, but his troupe fared poorly and fled back west.

Johnson's troupes had between six and twenty members, with an average of twelve.