The word gained prominence through the children's book Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman, in 1899. It was the story of a boy named Sambo who outwitted a group of hungry tigers. Bannerman also wrote Little Black Mingo, Little Black Quasha, and Little Black Quibba. One recent edition has renamed the book The Story of Little Babaji. In this book, Sambo is the name of a southern Indian boy. Someone has claimed that the author was not aware of the racial African meaning at the time the book was written.
The once-popular "Sambo's" restaurant chain used the Helen Bannerman images to promote and decorate their restaurants although it was named after the chain's co-owners, Samuel Battistone and Newell Bohnett. The word had such negative connotations by itself that despite the actual origin of the chain's name, it was a real contributing factor in the chain's demise in the early 1980s.
Read more about this topic: Sambo (racial Term)
Famous quotes containing the word black:
“I respect the ways of old folks, but the blood of a rooster or a goat cannot turn the seasons, change the course of the clouds and fill them up with water like bladders. The other night, at the ceremony for Legba, I danced and sang my fill: I am a black man, no? and I enjoyed it like a true Negro should. When the drums beat, I feel it in the pit of my stomach, I feel the itch in my hips and up and down my legs, I have got to join the party. But that is all.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)