confrontation of racial groups declined after the 1960s as white recognition of black claims for racial equality increased. But the degree to which race relations, or the position of black Americans, have improved is debatable: “we can easily sketch a glowing picture of racial progress (e.g. increasing Black voter registration, higher educational and occupational attainment, and a fading of traditional social stereotypes), or with equal persuasiveness, a dismal view (e.g. low college attendance and graduation rates, high Black unemployment, Black‐on‐Black violence, and new subtle racial stereotypes)” (p. 444–5).
Pescosolido et al. wanted to know how the change in race relations in American society was reflected in its art. Children’s books provide an important source for understanding society. Their stories entail a “moral certainty” and a simplicity of presentation that offer a window into adult belief systems. Moreover, children’s books play a role in the socialization of children, thus their content may shape children’s views of racial minorities, and of “status arrangements, social boundaries and power” (p. 444).
Pescosolido et al. examined three categories of children’s books, award‐winners (those receiving a Caldecott Medal or Caldecott Honor for excellent illustrations), the library market (those compiled in the Children’s Catalog, a broad listing from which librarians make purchase decisions), and the mass market (the Little Golden Books). In total, they coded 2448 books. They measured the visibility of black characters in each year by counting the number of books which had (1) one or more black characters (African, Caribbean and/or African‐American) in the text or illustrations, and (2) exclusively black characters. They also examined the content of the portrayals; quantitatively “by coding geographical and temporal location (e.g. rural versus urban; United States versus other; past versus contemporary), occupational roles, and whether there was interracial contact” and qualitatively through an evaluation of “Black representation and Black–White interactions … including the centrality of Black characters and the degree to which interracial contact was central (e.g. whether it involved the main character or background characters), intimate (e.g. brief or sustained interactions), or egalitarian” (p. 447).
The authors were interested in how the portrayals reflected society, specifically, how they reflected the state of race relations. They measured this through data on “racial conflict” based on reports in the New York Times Index. They coded three types of events with a racial component as instances of racial conflict, (1) public acts of violence, physical confrontation or arrest, (2) protests, and (3) legal actions.
Pescosolido et al. found that, across the whole sample, only 15 percent of books portrayed one or more black character. Three percent included only black characters. Their statistical results show a strong relationship between the level of racial conflict in society and the portrayals of black characters: “The data indicate a slight rise [in conflict events] beginning in 1945 corresponding to a gradual decline in portrayals of Black characters, a sharp rise between 1955 and 1965 corresponding to the disappearance of Blacks in illustrations and story lines, a sharp decline in the late 1960s paralleled by the dramatic reintroduction of portrayals of Blacks in books, and a return to earlier low levels of conflict corresponding to stabilization in the portrayals of Blacks in overall trends” (p. 457). In other words, portrayals of black characters decline when racial conflict increases, and vice‐versa.
Based on these results, Pescosolido et al. (p. 450) divide their sample into four periods: 1938–57 when portrayals of blacks was modest and declining, 1958–64 when black characters were virtually absent, 1965–1974 which heralded the reappearance of black characters, and 1975–1990 when portrayals stabilized at roughly 20 to 30 percent of books each year. Their qualitative data indicate that two themes dominated the earliest period. First, most books were about white characters, with black characters filling only incidental, subservient, roles. For instance, “a 1952 Little Golden Book [depicted] a Black train porter dusting off a White girl’s doll” (p. 450). The quality of interracial contact was superficial, and reflected the privileged status of whites. The text of a “1940 Caldecott Medal book…is illustrative: ‘When my father was very young he had two dogs and a colored boy. The dogs were named Sextus Hostilius and Numa Pompolius. The colored boy was just my father’s age. He was a slave, but they [didn’t] call him that. They just called him Dick’” (p. 450). Second, black children were shown in multiracial groups illustrating the theme of the “Family of Man” or “All God’s Children”. But again, interracial interaction is minimal and the majority of children pictured were white. A few books portraying blacks departed from these themes, but they were rare.
During the second period, from 1958 to 1964, very few blacks were portrayed, appearing in only 12 out of the 384 books studied. A variety of themes appeared among these few portrayals, ranging from a portrayal “mutuality between a Black girl and her Brownie troop” (p. 452) to a portrayal of “stereotypes that represent symbolic annihilation” (p. 452). Mutuality refers to “intimate, egalitarian relations central to the story line” (p. 455) and symbolic annihilation refers to the “absence, stereotyping, and trivialization” of minority groups (p. 444). An example of the latter is “a 1958 Little Golden Book [which depicts] over 200 Whites and 3 Blacks. The Blacks appear on the top deck of a large paddleboat while Whites socialize below – one Black character is asleep, one plays the banjo, and one eats watermelon” (p. 452).
During the third period, from 1965 to 1974, black characters reappeared in children’s books. The numbers of black characters increased and the quality of portrayals improved from the highly stereotypical portrayals in the early period. Books portraying only black characters also increased, and the Caldecott Medal was awarded for the first time to a book written and illustrated by black authors. In the fourth period, the number of portrayals stabilized at a higher level than in the previous times. Pescosolido et al. argue that, while the blatant stereotyping in the early time periods is gone, two features of recent books provide “subtle yet telling [evidence] about a lack of improvement in race relations” (p. 455). First, the portrayal of mutual interracial relationships is very rare. The books “continue to portray mainly surface contact, such as ‘crowd scenes’ on city streets, playgrounds or in classrooms” (p. 454), or characters from different races appear on separate pages. Second, while the portrayal of black children has increased, black adults – and especially black men – continue to be virtually absent from children’s books. For instance, only one out of more than 1000 Little Golden Books included a black male (p. 457). Stories that depict only black characters tend to “focus on historical themes, the depiction of folk tales, or feature social and temporal locations that are difficult to pinpoint” (p. 454); thus, black adults are featured only in “distant, ‘safe’ images” (p. 456).
Pescosolido et al. also discuss the effect of “gatekeepers” in the children’s publishing industry. They explain the disappearance of black characters during the period of increased racial conflict in the United States as due to the reactions of key gatekeepers, the predominantly white publishers. They suggest that publishers avoided portraying blacks as a strategy to avoid “troublesome issues and groups” (p. 460), in essence, to avoid conflict. The civil rights movement made it clear that the old stereotypes were unacceptable, but publishers were unsure about what new images were appropriate to convey to children, so they did not convey any. Two stories illustrate this point. A book of American rhymes, The Rooster Crows, which won a Caldecott medal in 1945 “became the focus of controversy when the NAACP contended that [it] portrayed Blacks in an unfavorable light. When a new, revised edition was published in the 1960s, NAACP efforts were finally seen as successful…. But the new edition simply removed Blacks from a book about America. In the face of controversy and with no new rhymes or jingles to replace the stereotyped ones, Black characters were eliminated and [replaced with] blond‐haired farm children” (p. 461). In another book, a 1945 Children’s Catalog title, Little Fellow, a black character was shown in a highly stereotyped way: “The most visible (though not central) human character, ‘Whitey,’ is a stable hand who in the original version is Black, ‘exactly the same color as Chocolate’ (the horse). His speech is stereotyped:
