FSogol's 2018 Advent Calendar Day 18: The History of African American Department Store Santas

[FSogol]

Last edited Tue Dec 18, 2018, 10:43 AM - Edit history (1)

Last Christmas time, I wrote a long post of the origins of Santa Claus
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181021075
This Advent season, I wrote a post on when women took over as Santa
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181157790

What about African Americans? When did they start getting Santa jobs?

The first black Santas were part of racist minstrel shows. President Wilson attended one at his honeymoon at a Virginia resort. The press described it as a festive party "presided over by a dusky Santa Claus", with a large "gaily decorated" Christmas tree. Before [the tree] disported 15 Negroes, whose antics and musical efforts kept the President and everybody else almost convulsed with laughter."

Then In 1919,

the Pittsburgh Daily Post carried a report about the "the first negro Santa ever put on the streets of any city". He had been hired by the Volunteers of America in response to "appeals from poor coloured children", the newspaper added.

But the real breakthrough for black Santas came in 1936, when tap-dancing legend Bill "Bojangles" Robinson became Harlem's "first negro Santa Claus" at an annual Christmas Eve party for underprivileged children. In previous years, the children had been visited by a "Nordic Santa" from downtown New York, reported a local newspaper.

In 1943, one of Harlem's biggest department stores, Blumstein's, hired its first black Santa Claus. It was followed, in 1946, by a store in Chicago. As white people moved out to the suburbs, and began shopping at the giant new malls that were being built there, it made economic sense for downtown department store owners to tailor the Christmas shopping experience to their now mainly black customers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38231159


Bill "Bojangles" Robinson as Harlem's Santa, 1936

In the 1960s, Santa got caught up in the civil rights movement and boycotts. Santa was called "one of the established symbols of racism."

Shillittoes', (a Cincinnati department store), owner Fred Lazarus III refused to hire a black Father Christmas
claiming that, "this has nothing to do with equality of employment. It just doesn't fit the symbol as kids have known it."

He gave in to the boycotts and hired an African American Santa the following year. By 1970, even Macys had hired one.

One department store in Brooklyn even set up rival black-and-white Santas, separated by a low partition, to enable people to make their choice.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38231159


Kenny Green, the Santa of Iverson Mall in the suburbs of DC

Today, Macys in NYC offers two Santas (and yes, they speak Spanish too)


https://nypost.com/2017/12/16/macys-has-a-secret-army-of-diverse-santas/

(For an explanation of my advent project and a link to last years posts, see
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181152160 )