The figure of Santa Claus has evolved significantly over time, reflecting social and cultural shifts in American society. Even before the push for civil rights gained momentum, the holiday season was a battleground, with Santa Claus playing a prominent role. While the traditional image of Santa Claus is deeply embedded in American culture, the emergence of African American Santas has a rich and complex history, intertwined with themes of racial stereotypes, civil rights, and cultural identity.
Thomas Nast's depiction of Santa Claus during the Civil War.
The Origins of Santa Claus
The legend of Santa Claus begins in the fourth century with a monk who lived in modern-day Turkey named Saint Nicholas. After losing his parents at a young age Nicholas used his inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. He dedicated his life to serving God and was made Bishop of Myra while still a young man. Many are familiar with the origins of Santa Claus being tied to St. Nicholas of Myra, a region in Turkey.
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. No longer was Saint Nick a stern, wizened figure. Cartoonist Thomas Nast had reimagined him as a jolly, elven man with a pointy hat and a paunchy belly. 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.
Santa Claus as a Symbol of Division
In Nast’s hands, Santa Claus was a symbol for the Union cause, clad in the stars and stripes of the US flag. That image, which appeared on the cover of the national publication Harper’s Weekly, is considered one of the defining moments in the creation of the modern-day Santa Claus. One young drummer boy marvels at a wind-up jack-in-the-box toy. An older soldier, stocky and bearded, lifts a stocking filled with treats. Santa Claus himself dangles a lanky wooden puppet from a string - a figure meant to mock the leader of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, a vocal defender of slavery in the southern states.
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In other hands, however, Santa was a propaganda tool of a different sort, helping to reinforce racial stereotypes. Minstrel shows in the late 19th century married the figure with Blackface makeup to create imitation Santa Clauses who served as counterpoints to the benevolent white ones. These Blackface Santas were subjects of ridicule. They were bumbling thieves and klutzes who tumbled down chimneys, landing in the roaring flames below.
It appears to have been disturbing people for more than a century, judging from local newspaper reports about "negro Santas", which tend to veer from an amused "whatever next" tone to examples of flat-out racism. "A negro Santa Claus went down a chimney head first and landed on the fire," A 1901 news report, from Bloomfield, New Jersey, read. "The surprised occupants of the room flogged him." Other reports from the time tell of Christmas parties enlivened by "black-face" Santas, singing "negro melodies".
In 1915, a gushing account of President Wilson's honeymoon at a Virginia resort included a description of 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."
From Saint Nicholas to Santa Claus: The Evolution of Christmas's Icon 🎄
The Rise of Black Santas
Despite the initial mockery, the image of Black Santa evolved to become a civil rights figure in the 1950s and 60s. 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.
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.
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Bill "Bojangles" Robinson as Santa Claus.
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.
In the postwar years following WWII, the Black Santa gave civil rights campaigners a new way to gain attention to their cause. In 1969, Santa Claus was described as "one of the established symbols of racism" by a civil rights leader, in a dispute with Shillittoes, a Cincinnati department store, that refused to hire a black Father Christmas.
The store owner's Fred Lazarus III said: "This has nothing to do with equality of employment. It just doesn't fit the symbol as kids have known it." But the Rev Otis Moss Jr, a regional director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, hit back, saying: "If a department store cannot conceive of a black man as Santa Claus for 30 days, it most assuredly cannot conceive of his being president or vice president for 365 days." The store caved in and hired a black Santa the following year, something that began happening with increasing frequency across the country in the early 1970s, including at Macy's flagship New York store.
Black Santa in Modern Times
America's biggest shopping mall grabbed headlines this week by hiring its first African-American Father Christmas. The Minnesota shopping centre hired Larry Jefferson at a Santa convention in Missouri, where among more than 1,000 attendees he was the only African-American. He only appeared at the Mall of America for one weekend but it was still enough to spark racist abuse on message boards.
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Kenny Green is a man who takes his job seriously. He has been playing Santa Claus for the past five years and although the mall where he works, in a suburb of Washington DC, has hosted a black Santa for as long as anyone can remember, he says they are still "few and far between" in the rest of America. Green says even some African-American people have difficulty with a black Santa, recalling some "shocking" comments made by one woman last year, who told one of his elves Santa should be white.
But he adds: "When it comes to the spirit of Christmas and what the spirit of Santa is all about, it's not about race, it's not about white or black, it's about the love you have and the spirit you represent." He says the Mall of America's black Santa will "open a lot of eyes" and could lead to an "influx" of Santas from all different ethnic backgrounds, not just African American. "I would definitely take my children to go see an Hispanic Santa. I would definitely take my children to go see an Asian Santa," he says. "Because that's letting them know that Santa is a representation of all of us. That's who we should be. We all should be Santas.
Kenny Green, a modern-day Black Santa.
The Enduring Debate
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. 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.
Conclusion
Like many areas in American life, the symbols of Christmas are haunted by the specter of race hovering in the background. While the goal of creating a culturally representative depiction is important, I think it contains a fundamental flaw in terms of race and self-perception. When some Black parents (or as Heather Tirado Gilligan experienced in “I’m Dreaming Of A Less White Christmas For My Child of Color”) insist on a Black Santa their perceptive children quickly retort “Santa is white.”
