SPECIAL TO THE COMMUNITY VOICE:
In 2013, journalist Aisha Harris, a writer for Slate Magazine, created an uproar when she penned a column, “Santa Claus Should Not Be a White Man Anymore.”
In the viral, now-historic column, Harris questioned an increasingly diverse world without an increasingly diverse image of Santa.
“Isn’t it time that our image of Santa better serve all the children he delights each Christmas?”
Instead of a person, she suggested replacing the centerpiece of kids’ holiday dreams with a Christmas penguin, thereby nullifying the race issue surrounding Santa.
Needless to say, that issue didn’t catch on. Instead, she recalls in her 2023 book, “Never in my life had I been called a n—– more times than in the aftermath of Santa Penguin.”
More than a decade later, a post like that might garner even more hatred, not less. Racial hatred seems more rampant now than a decade ago, with anti-woke haters clinging even more tightly to their White privilege. They’re offended when the Santa at their local mall is Black.
However, they expect everyone else to accept their vision of Santa as just the way it’s supposed to be. They find themselves mad not just at the others but the corporate hacks they accuse of being woke.
Santa representation is growing, but it has a long way to go. While Black Santa figurines, cards, photos and decorations are more prevalent, nearly 80 years after the placement of the first Black department store Santa, live, melanated Santas remain too hard to find.
The History of Santa
The history of the Santa Clause we know today traces back to Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century bishop in Turkey, who was known for his generosity and his art of secretly providing gifts to the destitute.
The history of his gift giving and legacy as a protector of the poor laid the foundation for Santa Claus.
As his reputation expanded, in Holland the concept of St. Nicholas morphed into Cinder Claus, or Sinterklaas. The Dutch celebrated with a feast on Dec. 6 where children would leave their shoes out to be filled with treats. When they immigrated to America in the 1700s, the Dutch introduced this tradition to America.
Traditions and Santa Claus evolved over the years, but many of the customs of Santa were solidified with the introduction and popularity of the 1823 story “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” better known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
This poem established Santa as a fat, jolly guy who came down the chimney and flew around the world on his sled pulled by flying reindeer.
Santa’s visual identity was further developed through a series of illustrations in Harper’s Weekly, with artist Thomas Nast solidifying Santa’s identity as a White man, with a white beard who wears a red suit trimmed in white.
Black Santa Arrives
As the prominence of Santa’s role in the celebration of Christmas grew, Black children found themselves questioning whether Santa Claus was just for White children. There are reports of Black children writing to Black newspapers looking for answers as far back as the 1940s.
Yes, there were early Black Santas: White people in Blackface, performing demeaning and dehumanizing caricatures of Black people. But we won’t count those as Black Santas.
In segregated America, Black parents couldn’t take their children to the downtown department store to visit Santa. Blacks couldn’t shop in those stores. So, Black people did what we always did during segregation, we created our own.
Black Santa came to the hood. He showed up at Black churches, Black schools and events sponsored by Black organizations, most often carrying a bag of fresh fruit, nuts and hard candy for each child.
However, in larger cities in the 1940s, White families fled to the suburbs. White retailers, hoping to survive, opened their stores to Black residents who had moved into the area. Those families began demanding Black Santa Clauses in return for their patronage.
The first Black Santa Claus was hired by a White department store in 1943. It was at Blumstein’s in Harlem, a store that had previously not allowed Black shoppers. Not far behind them, Black Santas were hired at Chicago and Detroit department stores, with the first Santa Claus in Detroit hired at J.L. Hudson’s in 1946.
However, integration slowed the expansion of Black Santas. Black Americans began to abandon their community stores to shop uptown, where they were welcomed, albeit not so warmly. White Santa, who was paid to accept all children, did so regardless of whether he wanted to or not.
In the midst of integration, Black stores and Black Santas suffered greatly.
Black Empowerment
In the late ’60s and early ’70s, when Negroes became Black and began to exert their cultural identity, the segregated stores that accepted Black Santas were no more and despite welcoming Black dollars, White-owned stores didn’t welcome Black Santas.
Black Santa enjoyed a comeback during the Civil Rights Movement, where he began to show up as a symbol of empowerment, instead of a symbol of segregation.
Across the country, Black Santas reflected cultural pride, often wearing African-inspired attire and sporting black gloves over raised-fist hands, and perfectly groomed afros. But that wasn’t enough.
The popularity of Black Santa figurines, cards, t-shirts, and other paraphernalia became easy to find, but the jolly guy himself didn’t become mainstream. Most often, Black Santa was relegated again to community events, where Black parents clamoured to get a culturally picturesque moment.
It wasn’t until 2016 when the Mall of America hired Larry Jefferson as its first Black Santa, sparking both celebration and racist backlash.
Today, some stores hire Santas to match the demographics of their community and others offer Santas of different races for shoppers to choose from.
However, in a country where 40% of the population identify as people of color, and a full 60 years after desegregation and 80 years after the first Black Santa was hired by a department store, Black Santas are still too rare of a find.
