Charles M. Schulz Is Not A Racist

That’s right folks, Charles M. Schulz, creator of Charlie Brown is not a racist. He’s cleaner than a Safeway chitlin. As a matter of fact he introduced Franklin into the Peanut’s gang so there would be a black character in the comic strip. Franklin was first introduced to Charlie Brown in the summer of 1968 while their families were at the beach.

Franklin’s father was a soldier fighting in Vietnam, to which Charlie Brown replied “My dad’s a barber…he was in a war too, but I don’t know which one.” Its funny how after all those years, we never saw any of the parents of the Peanut gang. Now earlier I said he wanted a black character in the comic strip, but he was hesitant. Race relations in the late sixties was a sandwich, without the sand. It was after a Los Angeles schoolteacher named Harriet Glickman wrote to Schulz on April 15, 1968, urging him to introduce a black character into Peanuts and he finally relented. He said he had been thinking about it, but doing it may have meant he could jeopardize his national syndication. This was a terrible time and the racist were lean, mean and eager. There were plenty of them too. Glickman asked Schulz to add a black character just days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, who was killed on April 4, 1968. All over America, major cities were either on fire or being set on fire, including my hometown, Washington DC. A couple months later, Robert Kennedy was killed on June 6th 1968. America was on fire, you hear me, on fire!! It was during this turbulent time on July 31, 1968 that Franklin came to life in the Peanuts comic strip.

He is in school with Peppermint Patty and Marcie. Not sure if you remember, but Peppermint Patty is the tomboy who has a crush on Charlie Brown and calls him Chuck. Marcie is an unassuming character and is Franklin and Peppermint Patty’s friend. Schulz before he died told a sorry about when Franklin was first introduced. He describes the setting as being in a school where Franklin is seated in front of Peppermint Patty. He received a letter from a vicious southern editor saying something to the effect, ” I don’t mind you having a black character, but do not show him sitting in a school with white children… okay… Fire I tell you!!! Now mind you, we just talking about a comic strip character. You can imagine what it was like in real life.

Unlike Walt Disney and Dr Seuss , who were two dyed in the wool, buck tooth racist, Charles M. Shulz was not and I am forever grateful for the joy he brought into that hateful and happily forgotten, tragic American era. In retrospect maybe Charles was just telling people there was room at the table for black people. He was not putting Franklin by himself, but showing people there will be others coming.

• At its height, Peanuts was published daily in 2,600 papers in 75 countries, in 21 languages. Over the nearly 50 years that Peanuts was published, Schulz drew nearly 18,000 strips. The strips, plus merchandise and product endorsements, produced revenues of more than $1 billion per year, with Schulz earning an estimated $30 million to $40 million annually.
• Schulz didn’t choose the title “Peanuts” for the strip. He wanted the comic strip to be called, “Li’l Folks.” United Feature Syndicate felt the name was too similar to two other comic strips, “Li’l Abner” and “Little Folks,” so they settled on Peanuts, which was the name of the gallery featured in the old 1940’s Howdy Doody TV show.
• Snoopy’s name was originally supposed to be Sniffy. Schulz had wanted to name the dog Sniffy, but found that name had already been used by a dog in another comic strip. The cartoonist remembered his mother once saying that if the family were to get another dog, it should be named Snoopy. The rest is history.
• Schulz really wanted Charlie Brown to kick the football. In a 1999 interview,Schulz recounted when he signed the last “Peanuts” strip, saying “All of a sudden I thought, ‘You know, that poor, poor kid, he never even got to kick the football. What a dirty trick — he never had a chance to kick the football!'” Alas Charlie never did get to kick that football.
• Woodstock, Snoopy’s best friend, who happens to be a little yellow bird, was first seen in the strip in 1967 but wasn’t referred to by name until 1970. He was named after the summer music festival.

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  Snoopy comes from a big family. His brothers names are Andy, Olaf, Marbles, Spike and a sister called Belle.

• Schulz once said, “Peanuts are the grandest people in the world. All children are peanuts. They’re delightful, funny, irresistible, and wonderfully unpredictable. I really hate to see them grow out of the peanut stage.”
• Schulz was honored on May 27, 2000, by cartoonists of more than 100 comic strips. They paid homage to him and Peanuts by incorporating his characters into their strips that day.