By Logan Langlois
NASHVILLE, TN — Black Santa has always been a hotly debated holiday figure in the American consciousness. Many of his critics often forget, or maybe never learned, that the image of Black Santa was originally meant to mock the Black community until he was reclaimed as an inspirational figure. In the 1950s and 60s, the image of Black Santa evolved to become a civil rights figure. Today Black Santa continues to inspire hope, joy, merriment, and anger in the hearts of many, though the image of Santa himself was originally brought to America to help businesses pursue their true meaning of Christmas, profit.
The legend of Santa begins in the fourth century with a monk who lived in modern-day Turkey named Saint Nicholas. Today’s modern interpretation was shaped in the late 19th century by a series of cartoons that premiered in Harper’s Weekly magazine illustrated by Thomas Nast. During this time, evidence of the first American interpretations of a Black Santa can be found mostly as an example of minstrels playing along to a vaudeville tradition to depict Black people as inferior to whites.
Timely accounts tell of Christmas parties coming alive at the sight of “black face” Santa singing “negro melodies.” An example is the 1915 report of segregationist, Confederacy and Ku Klux Klan supporter, and 28th President of the United States Woodrow Wilson, being wildly entertained during his honeymoon at a festive party in a Virginia resort “presided over by a dusky Santa Claus.” BBC reports the account said, “Before [the tree] disported 15 negroes, whose antics and musical efforts kept the President and everybody else almost convulsed with laughter.”
In the early 20th Century, images inspired by Nast’s interpretation were arguably popularized when they premiered in a 1930s Coca-Cola commercial, as well as Christmas cards and other advertising campaigns. In 1919 the Pittsburgh Daily Post reported the first Black Santa “ever put on the streets of any city,” who had been hired by volunteers of America to appeal to poor children of color. In 1936, a pivotal moment in Black Santa’s history occurred when tap-dancing legend Bill “Bojangles” Robinson became Harlem’s first Black Santa during an annual Christmas Eve party for underprivileged children.
Blumstein’s, one of Harlem’s largest department stores, hired its first Black Santa in 1943, followed by many downtown department store owners who served a now mostly African American clientele as whites continued to move to the suburbs and shopped at large new malls being built. In the postwar years following WWII, the Black Santa gave civil rights campaigners a new way to gain attention to their cause. For example, Bloomington, Indiana’s NAACP chapter entered a Black Santa float into the city’s annual Christmas parade; Milwaukee saw a Black Santa lead a march for open housing legislation, and Black Santa began protesting nationally against racial bias.
As the years continued, many Black Power activists began to see the figure of Santa completely corrupted by white hegemony and advocated for the figure to be wholly abandoned, along with Christmas. Other Black activists dramatically altered the figure’s image, a good example being the series of Chicago Black Christmas Parades of 1968, guided by Black Santa wearing a Black velvet dashiki with a black glove in support of African American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who had protested the 1968 Summer Olympics two months earlier. Though Black Santa has continued to be a political figure for many, met with both love and loathing, many more today simply see him as a figure of inclusivity.
Copyright 2023, TN TRIBUNE, all rights reserved.
