Little Black Sambo - the Children's Book that Raised Generations with Racism

Today it would be unthinkable, but for the first thirty or more years of the Twentieth Century, millions of American children read Little Black Sambo, a so-called classic often illustrated with wildly racist images.

The Little Black Sambo story came into being in 1898. Helen Bannerman, the Scottish wife of a British doctor serving with the British Army in India, came up with the story to amuse her own children. It was first published in England the following year and in America the next.

Some critics who have studied Little Black Sambo point out that Bannerman may have tried to pattern the tale on Indian children. The family lived in India for thirty years, and so that setting would seem more likely. Furthermore, Bannerman's story involves tigers and according to a Wikipedia article,¹ tigers had long been extinct in Africa, but not India. Could it be that to a white woman of the era, any non-white was "Black" with no nuances of brown? She used the "Little Black..." label in several other stories, and "Little White..." in another.

The story's plot has some appealing elements that aren't offensive, but the author seems to be clueless in her choice of character names. Certainly, the "Sambo" part of the title was widely used at the time as a racist epithet in the United States.

Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology at Ferris State University, writes that, "Maybe Bannerman was unfamiliar with Sambo's American meaning." He also points out that, "The book reflects, but does not exceed, the prevailing anti-Black imaging of her time." His comprehensive essay "The Picaninny Caricature", covering a range of racist images, appears on the website of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia of Ferris State University, referenced in the resources links.