The Legacy of Shindana Toys:
Black Play and Black PowerAn Interview with David Crittendon,
Yolanda Hester, and Rob Goldberg

David Crittendon is an educator, musician, activist, historian, and the authorof the novel Then See If I Care: A Story about Bessie Smith. In 1964, he participated with Lou Smith and others in the Mississippi Freedom Summer
and, in 1965, worked alongside Smith at the Congress of Racial Equality’sHarlem office. He cofacilitated the Claiming Freedom Symposium commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Freedom Summer at Cal State–LA.
Yolanda Hester is a historian, archivist, educator, and writer. She curated theonline exhibitCommunity and Commerce: Oral Histories of African Businesses
in Los Angeles for The Center for Oral History Research. She has written
about the history of Black dolls and is currently working on an oral history
series with The Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund at UCLA. Crittenden and Hester
both served as historical consultants for Shindana Toy Company: Changing
the American Doll Industry, a special 2019 episode of PBS affiliate KCET’s
program Lost L.A. Rob Goldberg teaches history and cinema studies at SaintAnn’s School in Brooklyn. His current book project, under contract at Duke
University Press, looks at the way social justice movements of the 1960s
and 1970s changed how Americans think and talk about toys. In 2019 Crittendon, Hester, and Goldberg founded the Operation Bootstrap History
Collaborative. Key words: African American; Baby Nancy; Black joy; BlackPower; dolls; Lou Smith; Marva Maxie; Operation Bootstrap; Robert Hall;
Shindana Toys; Watts

American Journal of Play: You have elsewhere emphasized that the story of
Shindana Toys and its breakout doll, Baby Nancy—introduced in 1968—isintertwined with the civil rights movement. What does the history of thecompany tell us about Black activism and the Black community?
Yolanda Hester: A great deal can be learned from the story of Shindana, its
parent company Operation Bootstrap, and the activists involved, about
Black activism, and the Black community. For context, the whole affair—both Shindana and Operation Bootstrap—was started by two activists:
135
American Journal of Play, volume 13, numbers 2 and 3 © The Strong
Contact Yolanda Hester at yolandahester@gmail.com

136

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF

P L AY • WINTER & SPRING 2021

Lou Smith and Robert Hall. Smith and Hall had been involved in fighting
for civil rights for quite some time before they launched Bootstrap. Bothwere members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Hall was a local
activist who also helped start N-VAC (Non-Violent Action Committee) in
Los Angeles. Smith had been an activist in the east—in Philadelphia, New
York, and New Jersey—as well as in Mississippi, where he participated in
the 1964 Freedom Summer voting registration drives.
David Crittendon: I met Marva Maxey and Lou Smith in Freedom Summer in
Mississippi. We quickly became fast friends. Their Philadelphia sophistication and political acumen was far beyond mine, and I quickly realized I
should tag along and learn something. Mississippi was white hot with resistance to “outside agitators,” “n— lovers,” and anything to do with changing the South’s “way of life.” Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee(SNCC) organizers had entered Mississippi more than two years before
activist Bob Moses sent out the call to elite colleges to come South and join
the crusade for a more equal America. Activists Michael Schwerner, James
Chaney, and Andrew Goodman were already deceased when I met Lou
and Marva at the CORE convention in Kansas City, Missouri. The curtain
dropped real fast when so many of us decided to not take the invitation to
return home to the safety of our families. Though I was a weak link, early
the following morning, Lou invited me to ride with him and others tothe burned church in Longdale, Mississippi, where the trio was last seen.
After a brief whispered moment in this rural haunted pine grove, it wastime to go. We quickly attracted visitors, meaning the local Ku Klux Klan,
who chased us through the woods to a small village. We took a breather
then returned back toward Neshoba County, and damn if we didn’t getchased again. This time longer, faster, and more frightening. Lou’s senseof gallows humor and determined survivorship helped us remain almost
calm. I remember his looking about, assessing, measuring risk against thebenefits of making a difference in a lawless South. It’s not that Lou Smith
was not frightened; anything could go down. He taught that there were no
rules, except to mask the fear, accept fate, learn from your mentors, always
show gratitude to the Black community that risked their homes and lives
for strangers and demonstrated daily what a beautiful culture looked like.
		 Lou Smith was a polished advocate with a lot of street smarts as well as
political savvy. Robert Hall was an impassioned street organizer, impatientwith the status quo in South Central Los Angeles. It became clear that Hall

The Legacy of Shindana Toys: Black Play and Black Powerand Smith were peers, ready to create some “good trouble” if need be.
YH: In 1965 Smith was sent to LA [Los Angeles] by CORE to serve as the western regional director. Not too long after Smith arrived, the Watts Uprising erupted. This was in August 1965. Hall and Smith had met earlier at
CORE meetings. After the uprising, they wanted to do something, wanted
to respond to what was happening. Hall had already branched out from
CORE to help found N-VAC with a goal of being more grassroots and on
the ground with the community. With the spirit of that in mind, they joined
forces to establish Operation Bootstrap, a community-based organization that offered a number of needed services to the community. A couple
years later, they would embark on creating a toy company, Shindana Toys.
They embedded their social justice philosophies and methods into thework they did. They were very connected to the local community, and thecommunity was very involved, weighing in on decisions or working at theorganizations. Both Smith and Hall were keenly aware of all of the different strands of the Black freedom movement expressed at the time: the civilrights movement, the Black Power movement, Black Arts Movement, theBlack Panthers, the student protest movement, and even Black Capitalism,
and some of these ideas were incorporated into the work that they did.
		 What’s particularly remarkable about their work—and work that was
deeply socioeconomic, political in purpose—was the relationships thatthey established in the community and the authenticity that they foughtfor. And this authenticity can be found, of course, in the craftsmanship ofthe dolls but also in the way in which both organizations evolved.
Rob Goldberg: I’d add that the Operation Bootstrap story, of which Shindana
is just one part, reminds us of the diversity of Black Power activism during
the late 1960s and 1970s. It also reminds us that business was understoodas a key tool for producing social change, just as it had been for generationsof African American reformers before. The history of Operation Bootstrap and Shindana complicates the conventional story of the postwar civilrights movement. In that narrative, once Martin Luther King, Jr.’s quest fornational legislation had been achieved in 1964 and 1965, the Black freedom
movement suddenly collapsed, or imploded. But that wasn’t the case! Ironically, this familiar declension narrative often points to the insurrection in
Watts as the beginning of the end of the movement, when, arguably, Watts
is not the end of Black civic activism but a turning point, a moment when
Black Americans in Los Angeles came to see how little the state was willing

137

138

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF

P L AY • WINTER & SPRING 2021

to do to redress centuries of inequity and discrimination and violence andhow they needed to do it themselves. Operation Bootstrap was born out ofthat realization. So were many other organizations, like the Studio Watts
Workshop and the Watts Writers Project and the LA Black Arts Movement
led by Betye Saar and David Hammons, which historian Kellie Jones has
documented in her 2017 book South of Pico. All of this came after Watts
and out of the movement for Black Power. In that sense, Baby Nancy andthe company’s other dolls are the products of Black Power too.
AJP: In interviews, Shindana Toys cofounder Lou Smith often described thecompany’s products as educational tools: building up self-love and pridein Black children as well as potentially cultivating empathy and antiracist
attitudes in other children. Why did the company imagine playthings could
have this impact?
YH: There is a long tradition of toys being used as educational tools, whether
to teach kids the social norms or to develop skills. But toys, like children’s literature, have also been employed to inculcate racist ideas andwhite supremacy, sometimes overtly and at other times less so. It makesme think of the pickaninny dolls and also the lack of representation inliterature. Regardless of intent, the impact remains effective, and over theyears, African Americans have produced toys not only to fill the gap inwhat has been available for Black children but also to counter and challengesome of these ideas. Toys geared to Black children to bolster self-esteem
or instill racial pride have a long history. Marcus Garvey produced dolls
for this purpose, as did Richard Henry Boyd and Sara Lee Creech. W. E.
B. Du Bois even published the Brownies’ Book as well, the first children’s
magazine geared toward Black kids. Probably the most significant historicalmoment in thinking about the self-esteem of Black kids and toys would
be the doll tests conducted in the 1940s by doctors Mamie and Kenneth
Clark, psychologists who through their tests drew conclusions about the
impact of racism on the self-esteem of Black children. Smith and Hall
were undoubtedly aware of these tests, but they also knew that the mostconsequential impact would lie in ensuring that the toys expressed a levelof undeniable authenticity.
		 And, of course, ideas of representation and authenticity are relative tothe times. This is where I think the work and conversations generated by
the artists of the Black Arts Movement had influence. Artist Jim Toatleysculpted the Baby Nancy mold which was molded after a local girl, local

The Legacy of Shindana Toys: Black Play and Black Powerartists designed the clothes influenced by a palette of Pan-Africanism, andthe use of Swahili was present and forefront. All of these factors expresseda level of community involvement and political insight that made people
proud to have these dolls. In my interviews of people connected to theorganization, there was tremendous pride in not only the products that
Shindana produced but also in the work that was being done by the organizations in supporting the community.
DC: Within the Black community, there is always the desire to move up higher,
do a little better than anybody expected under the circumstances. Yolanda,
thank you for naming Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Clarks as
exemplars of the desire to do better by the Black community. Each generation striving harder and deeper for the location where the family mightthrive at least part of the time. I remember my maternal grandfather, David
Hawkins, “recollecting” that a friend had been in Detroit in the 1930s andheard a Black preacher say, “God is Black.” It was the most confounding
statement he had yet heard. “Well, ain’t this something. God is Black.” Thatfollowed a discussion with my grandmother, Susie, arguing that nobody
knows the color of God or if God can or will be seen. There is humor here
but the imagery lasts. That, if God is Black, then color of skin must be
beyond caste. The white standard no longer exists, but yet a Black God
is not promoted as a doll or toy unless we discuss the spirit masks out of
African antiquity. All this to say, there is great pride in dolls that build thechild’s imagination. There is great benefit in every culture’s sense of beauty
and identity. Lou Smith and Marva early on saw the value in promoting
the idea of authenticity within the Black community. This represents thedepth of their own learning and willingness to nurture self-love.
AJP: Shindana Toys was founded in the heart of the Los Angeles community ofWatts. What can you tell us about the relationship between Black joy andplay in Watts?
YH: Well, Black joy exists and Black joy matters. It has always existed. But I also
think of Tamir Rice, and the nine-year-old girl who was peppered sprayedin Rochester, New York, and fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, and George
Stinney, who was fourteen when he was executed, and more recently sixteen-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant, and the type of racialized violence imposedon Black kids. And yet Black joy and Black play still exist. It still emerges.
It still thrives. And you can see that across many communities.
RG: I agree. The problem is that for centuries it has been silenced, neglected, and

139

140

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF

P L AY • WINTER & SPRING 2021

undocumented by those who have controlled the production of history.
This muting of Black joy reflected a larger racist cultural project, because
to express joy and happiness and laughter in a society that denigrates anddehumanizes you is to refuse dehumanization. It’s an act of resistance tothe logic of white supremacy, an affirmation of being alive. And as Yolanda
said, those affirmations could be found across the country in the 1960s
and 1970s, including in Watts. In fact, during the same years that Watts
became associated almost exclusively with Black anguish and rioting, thereal community of Watts became a center of Black artistic and cultural
production. And joy was central. Poet Jayne Cortez founded the Watts
Repertory Theater Company, and it flourished. In 1972 the Wattstax Festival made history with its sonic expressions of Black pride. We can findfurther evidence of Black joy in Watts if we open our source base to theartifacts of cinema and television. I’m thinking of the neighborhood kids atplay in Charles Burnett’s landmark 1978 film, Killer of Sheep. And let’s notforget that Watts was the setting for comedian Redd Foxx’s own iconoclastic
vision of Black joy in his top-rated NBC sitcom, Sanford and Son. It’s nocoincidence that Shindana Toys produced the first and only Redd Foxx
talking doll. We might say that the company brought Black joy to toys inthe same way Foxx brought it to TV.
DC: My shout-out goes to Peter J. Harris, poet, griot, songster, brother, friend,
mentor, who founded the Black Man of Happiness Project in 2010 (blackmanofhappiness.com). Long before happiness was formalized, Peter was
happy. Determined despite the cost or set back to see himself and his own
humanity brought front and center. Happiness, the smile, the camaraderie
of brothers in pairs, in groups, laughing without time to stop laughing,modeling the possibility of the free Black man alive with joy, maintaining
the bright light within that holds the key to Birdsong. See you, Peter J. See
you laughing every day. See you.
AJP: What was the industrial design, sculpting, and manufacturing process likefor producing Black dolls and figures in the 1960s and 1970s?
RG: What it looked like in the 1960s was very different from what it looked
like in the 1970s, generally speaking. Up until the late 1960s, the large toy
makers that did produce Black dolls did little more than tint the resin of
the plastic before adding it to the mold, in order to color it brown. Thatchanged at the 1968 Toy Fair, when Mattel and Remco both introduced
what they later called “ethnically correct” Black dolls—dolls with distinc-

The Legacy of Shindana Toys: Black Play and Black Power

tive head molds meant to represent Black features, as opposed just to thewhite dolls tinted brown. Later that same year, with the financial assistanceand expert advice of Mattel (which had its headquarters in Los Angeles),Operation Bootstrap launched Shindana, which brought out its own ethnically correct doll, Baby Nancy. But Smith and Hall didn’t stop there. In
1969 the company achieved a new level of intentionality and authenticity
when it decided that the Nancy doll, which originally had rooted straighthair in pigtails, deserved a second version that celebrated the Afro hairstylethat had become increasingly popular and politically meaningful. It wasn’t
easy. They ended up importing a specially made oven from Italy that could
simulate the natural hair texture of many Black people. Baby Nancy had
the first natural in toy history.
YH: Yes, and even in the late 1960s early 1970s, it was still hard to pull off
what Shindana did without full control over manufacturing. Although
successful, they ended up manufacturing their own dolls. During the firstyear, when they outsourced some of the production, they had issues with
manufacturers defaulting to traditional molds and “correcting” featureson the Baby Nancy doll.
AJP: Shindana Toys sought to capture the rich diversity of the Black community
in small details such as hair texture, textile patterns for clothes, and character backstories like those for Career Girl Wanda. Tell us more about thecreative process and where the company found its models and inspirations.
RG: Shindana found its models and inspiration quite literally in the community
where Operation Bootstrap was born. The toy makers who developed thedesign for Baby Nancy’s head mold were highly conscious of the need tomake her facial features distinctively Black. But it was more than that:
They wanted to create a representation of a young Black child that not
only looked nonstereotyped but also reflected how Black children saw
themselves. And so, before they even made their in-house drawings to
cut the mold, they invited local Watts kids to submit their drawings andused them as inspiration. The result was that Shindana represented Blackchildren in ways no other Black dolls had. The company’s designers also
invoked aspects of the contemporary Black experience that were missing
entirely from children’s consumer culture. For instance, all of the Li’l Souls
rag dolls came with a narrative-based coloring book that centers on the
lives of two of the Li’l Souls, Sis and Wilkie, as they move from Alabama tolive with their grandmother. In doing so, the book placed these characters

141

142

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF

P L AY • WINTER & SPRING 2021

in an important cultural narrative of migration that defined the African
American experience of the twentieth century, when six-and-a-half-million
people fled the south for better lives and transformed cities like Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, and of course, Los Angeles.
YH: They eventually expanded beyond baby dolls into Barbie-like dolls in 1972.
Their Career Girl line highlighted careers that they thought were feasible
and inspiring for young Black girls. Each doll came with a character book.
Each doll was modeled after real women and real women from the community who held those jobs. They really drew on their community as theirgreatest resource.
AJP: As the company grew, what kinds of challenges did Shindana Toys face?
YH: What we know from some documentation is that distribution proved to
be challenging at times. There was a newspaper article where a Shindana
executive talked about the fact that toy distributors wanted to distributethe dolls solely in Black communities and not white communities, despite
white families making up a significant customer base for the company.
The distributors just didn’t believe that that was true, and yet to compete
Shindana needed to tap into that market as well, so company executives
had to constantly prove to the distributors that that was a viable market
for their toys. Additionally, when the dolls were distributed to the Black
market, there were never enough, as store owners, feeling that they only
served a niche market, would buy only a small quantity.
RG: Another issue for Shindana in particular was a shifting commercial landscape. All of the large corporate toy companies, the ones who could afford
to advertise on TV, had economies of scale that Shindana could nevermatch. When buyers for variety stores in the 1970s wanted, say, a case of
Kenner’s TV-advertised white doll, they could purchase a smaller numberof Kenner’s brown-colored Black versions of that doll at a cost much lower
than what Shindana could offer for its ethnically correct Black dolls. Culturally, Shindana’s timing was great. Commercially, much less so. This was themoment that huge food corporations like Nabisco and General Mills werebuying up toy companies. This concentration of the toy business proved
to be a major obstacle. Mattel had done so much to help Shindana get off
the ground, but by the end of the 1970s, it was mainly a competitor withexponentially larger resources.
DC: I lost contact with Lou and Marva as I invested in my music quest during
the late 1960s into the 1970s. We would occasionally catch up on the phone

The Legacy of Shindana Toys: Black Play and Black Powerand promise to get together. It was always wonderful to renew the bondand friendship. Unfortunately, time slipped away from us.
		 I remember a visit with Lou and Robert Hall at Operation Bootstrap.
I can’t name the date. Robert did not appear well. He was not his usual
self. I sensed his separation from the ideals and brilliant efforts of the
Bootstrap years. Robert was an organizer to the bone. Running a company
that manufactured dolls was far from his calling. I know Lou and Robert
did their best to salvage what remained of their partnership. Like many
1960s activists, Robert was down for action, for ideas that continued andvalidated his abilities. It must have been painful for Robert to understandthat Lou believed building Shindana would prove more substantial andbeneficial to the South Central Los Angeles community than the former
Bootstrap model. Great respect to Robert Hall and Lou Smith and Marva
Maxey. Their accomplishment and sacrifice is full of love and valor.
AJP: For many children, Shindana Toys offered the earliest formative examplesof Black dolls and toys that existed. In your own childhoods, do you recall
seeing Black representation on the toy shelves or on the playground?
YH: My early childhood was spent in Chicago in the 1970s before my family
moved to Maryland. We lived on the south side of Chicago in a predominantly Black neighborhood. When I think of my childhood during thosetimes, I think of The Jackson Five Show, my aunt showing off her afro,
dancing to Soul Train, and playing softball with cousins. I remember a lotof experiences and a lot of play, but not a lot of toys. I do remember one
doll that I was very attached to. She was a Black doll, and I have no idea
where my parents got her as Black dolls were hard to come by at that time.
I loved this doll so much and took her everywhere with me. One day wewent to the beach and while playing in the water a little girl came by andstole her. I cried for days. It was my first experience of loss. My parents
tried to replace her, but I wouldn’t accept a new doll. I remember being
quite upset for some time then losing interest in baby dolls.
RG: Besides my Lando Calrissian action figure, based on the character fromThe Empire Strikes Back, the only other Black dolls I remember having or
playing with at friends’ houses, were from the 3 3/4-inch G.I. Joe line by
Hasbro. This was the mid-1980s. There were several major Black characters,
and the cards they came with had these detailed backstories about theireducation, skills, and personalities—kind of like what Shindana had donewith Slade Super Agent a decade earlier. Hasbro also had a special mail-in

143

144

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF

P L AY • WINTER & SPRING 2021

offer where you could get a miniature figure of “The Fridge,” the nicknameof Chicago Bears football star William Perry. He was a favorite. But Mattel’s
He-Man, another line I loved, didn’t have any Black characters, at least notwhen I was playing with it. Neither did the other toys I played with often,
Lego and Playmobil.
DC: I remember the old-fashioned dolls that belonged to my mother andaunts. I discovered them in an old trunk stored in the attic of my grandparents’ house. None of the dolls was Black. Their limbs were composedof straw filling with a plain muslin covering. All wore traditional dresses
stressed by age, faded pink cheeks, and blond hair. I remember the dollheads were rather heavy and carefully painted. They obviously had beenvaluable playthings long ago. There were combs and mirrors, costume
jewelry, dresses both homemade and manufactured. My grandmotherSusie made corn silk babies for relatives when she was a girl in Tennessee. A gleaming black Singer sewing machine controlled the landing on
the second-floor bedroom where Susie kept her chair, sewing patterns
and a roll of cloth in a bag.
		 My childhood was during the late 1940s into the 1950s. I had love fora stuffed rabbit, a worn teddy bear, a red-and-white dog, and piggy bankthat lived atop my chest of drawers. The top drawer held grade school
photos, a whistle, bubble gum, pens, paper, key chains, and other junk.
There wasn’t a lot of visiting inside playmates’ homes. I guess it was aMidwest thing—privacy, keeping the other at a distance. As an only child,
I learned to make as many friends as possible but also was aware that the
racial composition of the neighborhood was mainly white. My childhood
friendships were often close and long lasting. It was understood children
were a different species from their parents. Our play, running, jumping,
imagining, was our world. Parents still allowed childhood to exist.
		 Summer meant Chinese checkers, flying kites that touched clouds,
drawing a ring in the dirt, “lagging in,” and trying to capture—some said
steal—as many marbles as possible. This was a boy’s world but not completely. My best friend for many years was Sherry, a blond girl who lived
down the street with her grandmother, mom, and younger sister. Sherrycollected thread, paper dolls, and phonograph records. Whether they
admitted it or not, more than a few boys indulged these traditionally girlpastimes on a cloudy day. I’ll always remember Sherry and her family. Theynever cared that I was different.

The Legacy of Shindana Toys: Black Play and Black Power		 White parents and Black parents were watchful about gender. Midwest
kids could hang and play, but there were limits to what friendship might
mean. The kids who created strong friendship bonds knew, without directlydiscussing the issue, that as Black and white, we could only go so far. My
mother warned that white kids could “act funny” when they got older andmy need to trust “the outside world” could bring pain. She knew I blithely
pursued friendships until it became clear that I could never be “one ofthem.” She was right. I learned the importance of imaginary friendships,
depended more completely on the reality of the natural world, and tried
to understand a complicated life.
AJP: How would you like Shindana Toys to be remembered?
RG: Just as this country is finally coming to understand the Black Panther Party
for Self-Defense as not a vigilante group but a national community movement that served Black Americans when federal and city governments
would not, with chapters creating breakfast programs and health clinics,
I hope we will remember Shindana as part of something bigger and more
multifaceted than a successful business venture. To quote something mycolleague Yolanda has said, “Shindana was not your typical toy factory.”
And it’s true in so many ways. Here is a nonprofit, activist toy company
that hired from the community and then returned its profits to invest inand nurture that same community. This was not business for private gain.
This was business for the people—and at every level. If young people could
learn about the vibrancy, creativity, and idealism that characterized theBlack Power era by learning about Shindana, that would be something.
DC: Lou Smith did not place limits on his imagination. He was an activist Black
man. Competitive, funny, ambitious, and tired of second-class thinking.
He had love for the world community. The racist political, educational,
and business format locked Black entrepreneurs out of the game. It was
rigged like the post slavery Jim Crow madness. CORE gave Lou a platform
for his intellect and an intention to make a difference. Shindana was theshining jewel of his possibility. In South Central Los Angeles, Lou andRobert Hall swept up the glass and convinced a large group of diverse andtalented Angelenos to venture onto Central Avenue. What happened was
remarkable and life changing for a large number of people. I, like manyothers, benefitted from just being around the change that transformed an
oppressed community. I had no doubt that Lou and Robert would achieve
the renaissance called Operation Bootstrap. They had wind in their sail,

145

146

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF

P L AY • WINTER & SPRING 2021

strength in their step. They modeled finding oneself. Removing the blinders from the eyes of talented Black folk who never before had a couple ofBlack men saying, “You can do it. I’ll help you.” This is the gift of Shindana.
It brought all of us closer to our own brilliance and possibility. It showed a
lot of Black folk that they were on a path called success. That they deserved
and would remember Shindana, the factory, children, the achievement thatno one could take from them.
YH: They touch on all the most important and beautiful parts. I hope its legacy
lives on and that the people involved, Lou, Robert, and all the community
members, are remembered.