Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist
*Starred Review* A stylish woman holds a newspaper behind her back as a perky little girl enters the room and says, “I don’t want to be touchy on the subject . . . but, that new little white tea-kettle just whistled at me!” Published in the wake of the 1955 murder in Mississippi of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American who allegedly whistled at a white woman, this is one of hundreds of seductive, technically exceptional, and slyly hard-hitting newspaper cartoons created by Jackie Ormes (1911–85), “the first and only” African American woman cartoonist of her time. An artist of conscience and a prominent activist, the glamorous Ormes entertained, inspired, and provoked readers with her unique female characters, especially precocious, sharp-tongued five-year-old Patty-Jo and her forbearing fashion-plate older sister, Ginger. In the first book devoted to Ormes, Goldstein not only recounts with enthusiasm the trailblazing cartoonist’s remarkable story from her birth in Pittsburgh to her celebrity-filled life in Chicago but also keenly analyzes Ormes’ influential cartoons and the role black newspapers played in the struggle for racial equality. With a generous selection of Ormes’ “forward-looking” cartoons resurrected for the first time, this is one exciting and significant book. Viva Jackie Ormes. --Donna Seaman