I started with Lewis Carroll, then went on this progression of seemingly random but actually connected links.
The Story of Little Kettle-head
The Story of Little Black Sambo
Read that without any illustrations. Then proceed.
The story (one of my favourites as a child; ironically--given the controversy engendered by the illustrations--I had it in 45 record form, rather than as a book) is a fantasy of a resourceful boy, that has--especially in the US--been horribly misinterpreted. The story was originally written by a Scottish, Helen Bannerman, woman who lived in India, writing for her daughers. The first edition was produced in 1899, at the height of British imperialism. Ostensibly Sambo is Indian--there are, after all, no tigers in Africa. But her family, living in India, was quite familiar with the thrilling danger tigers would produce as the villians. According to Julius Lester, she wanted a more exotic aspect to the story, something outside the girls' experience. And it is this that has led to the book's eventual downfall, for Bannerman's choice of names like Sambo, Jumbo, and Mumbo--with the 'mb' suggesting African names, along with her crude original illustrations--which mixed Southern Indian and African types as viewed by a British woman at a time when many non-Europeans were characterised as 'black'--racist, perhaps, but not necessarily pejorative--led to people, especially in the US, either accentuate and further racial stereotypes or in the light of the experience accuse it of blatant racism. Regardless of Bannerman's original intent, and the obvious joy that many generations of children have taken in the story, it has become a battleground. It is almost impossible to find one of the older copies in a library today, for even if they were not outright challenged and censored, they were quietly removed as society became more race-conscious and political correctness gained supremecy.
I'm happy you can still get the unchanged text, (simply because I think it's important to be able to teach children how the story has changed) but there are a couple of other editions out that have been inspired by the original. One is The Story of Little Babaji, which leaves the story alone beyond changing the names and including more appropriate illustrations of India. Another, Sam and the Tigers, by Lester, keeps the story firmly set in fantasy-land, but departs from the story more. I'm grateful to Lester's comments. I have always defended the book, feeling that it was over-analysed by adults. I always understood it to be a book about India, with the blatantly racist depictions of Sambo as being later additions that were misunderstood by an ethonocentric America. But once I saw Bannerman's illustrations--not quite as African, true, but understandably suggestive--although I still think they are a far cry from the images of some of the later editions--I did more digging, and came across his discussion, can came to a better understanding of the story, which, incidentally, I do still love.
More about Helen Bannerman [The site has links to a lot of variations on the Sambo theme. Apparently Bannerman did not retain the original copyright, so her work was produced with different illustrations in many different reprints, some very clearly meant to be African.]
Sambo's Restaurant postcard series, including the story, from the 70s. Incidentally, I remember Sambo's--but barely, as they were here in Kentucky but I don't remember them in Louisiana. They were famous for pancakes--and of course in the story Sambo uses the butter from the melted tigers on his pancakes, hungry after his ordeal. I remember the restaurant's name--and some of its practices--being considered racist, too, but I don't remember the particulars. I don't remember the murals Dwana has told me about, which apparently depicted the story in racist stereotypes. The postcards are firmly on the Indian side of interpretation, and the story is reproduced without calling Sambo 'little' or 'black'.
Ironically, it was called Sambo's because the founders were named Sam and Bo. Really. At one point, there were 1200 restaurants nationally; but the name, which took on racist connotations in the 1930s and 40s, became an impediment, and a boycott of the restaurant was made. According the article, in the 1990s, Sam's grandson was trying to rebuild. Perhaps he can in the West; here in the South, the name is too problematic.
Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia
Thoroughly Modern Mammy
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