Content Warning: Due to the sensitive nature of these materials, as well as copyright issues, we have chosen to share only 3 or 4 images per text.
In this exhibit we feature versions of Little Black Sambo that tend to illustrate Sambo and his family as African American, rather than as African or Ethnically Ambiguous. In the Baldwin Library’s Collection, viewers will note the dominance of Eulalie’s illustrations in the many different versions of Sambo. In additions to being one of the more famous illustrators, Eulalie was also the earliest to portray the boy and his family both realistically and humanely. That is, to resist the urge of drawing upon harmful racist stereotypes and caricatures in her versions, which, as is plain to see, were reused often in collections of children’s stories. However, we also must note that the Baldwin’s own collection of Little Black Sambo is only a small representation of the hundreds and hundreds of different versions–many that may be lost to history forever. Further, the general trend in illustrations tended to dehumanize and ‘devolve’ Sambo and his family by distinctly framing them as Africans or ethnically ambiguous.
While we have created the artificial division of ‘African’ and ‘African American’ in this Exhibit, the general distinction we are making between the two is the presence of domesticity in the family’s home and its furnishings, the style of clothing the characters wear, and the presence or absence of additional animals which would geographically place the story in the American South or in Africa. While these seem like minor observations to make, the general trend between these two categories is that the versions which ‘Africanize’ the family tend to also draw much more racist caricatures than the versions that illustrate them as African Americans. Again, this distinction, though slight, points to the slow shift in public perception and persecution of Little Black Sambo‘s (re)presentation of harmful stereotypes of African Americans.
View texts that depict Sambo as African American:
- Little Black Sambo: “Linenette”
- Little Black Sambo
- Little Black Sambo in Stories Children Like
- Little Black Sambo
- Little Black Sambo in Chimney Corner Stories
- Little Black Sambo
- Little Black Sambo and The Story of Topsy from Uncle Tom’s Cabin
- Little Black Sambo
- The New Animated Little Black Sambo (With Pictures That Actually Move!)
- Little Black Sambo Linen ABC
Credits
Brandon Murakami