A Quick MIBDH*

Yesterday I went to my favorite local, closeout retailer/discount store, Big Lots (well... not really my favorite, but I went there looking for blank CDs). Instead of finding the needed CD's, I found a 6-inch Lt. Uhura action figure like the one pictured above for $5. I couldn't leave her there. She will complement dolls/action figures that preceded her in the collection.  These include the 2009 Lt. Uhura doll by Mattel fashioned after the lovely Zoe Saldana's role in the movie, Star Trek (2009), and the 1996 action figure Lt. Uhura by Playmates inspired by the original Lt. Uhura TV character portrayed by the still lovely Nichelle Nichols.

At the end of Star Trek's first season, Nichelle was thinking seriously [about] leaving the show, but a chance and moving meeting with [Dr.] Martin Luther King, [Jr.] changed her mind. He told her she couldn't give up...she was a vital role model for young black women in America. Needless to say, Nichelle stayed with the show and has appeared in [the] first six Star Trek movies. She also provided the voice for Lt. Uhura on the Star Trek animated series [from] 1974-75.

Nichols' chance meeting with Dr. King is further described at http://www.nndb.com/people/712/000023643/ as follows:

She considered quitting Star Trek midway through its first season, when her character had been given little to do beyond perpetually opening hailing frequencies. In one interview, she famously described Uhura as "a glorified telephone operator in space". Then, at a civil rights protest, she met Martin Luther King Jr. -- who told her that he was a big fan of Star Trek. According to Nichols, when she told King she was thinking of quitting the show, he was shocked. "Don't you know you have the first non-stereotypical role in television?" she recalls King saying. "For the first time the world will see us as we should be seen -- people of quality in the future. You created a role with dignity and beauty and grace and intelligence. You're not just a role model for our children, but for people who don't look like us to see us for the first time as equals."

For more information on Nichelle Nichols, visit her official website or her page on Startrek.com (from which the first quote was gleaned).

dbg

PS:  Was Mattel inspired by Nichelle Nichols when naming their friend-of-Barbie, Nichelle?

*Moments in Black Doll History
:-)

Moments in Black Doll History - Leo Moss

Since this is Black History Month, I have decided to post various moments in black-doll history.  These moments will be in the form of snippets of information about a particular black doll, artist, or manufacturer who incorporated black dolls into their lines or chiefly made them.

The first snippet is about Leo Moss and his dolls. 

The above image was used in the first issue of Black Doll-E-Zine* in the Doll Collecting News section.

Leo Moss, a Black doll maker and Macon, Georgia native, made dolls in the late 1800s through the early 1900s. Friends and family are reported to have been the subjects for his dolls, many of which bore sad faces with actual teardrops molded into their papier-mâché faces. It has been written that the tears were added to Moss’s dolls after his wife ran away with the Caucasian toymaker from whom he purchased doll bodies. Another source indicates that when a child cried and could not be consoled while a doll in its likeness was being made, Mr. Moss added the tears. Leo Moss dolls are extremely rare and can sell for thousands at auction. (Excerpt from my book, Black Dolls a Comprehensive Guide to Celebrating, Collecting, and Experiencing the Passion, 2008)

I recently communicated with an owner of Moss dolls, Steva Roark Allgood, and read an article written by her ("To Leo Moss with love" printed in the Fall 1987 issue of UFDC's Doll News). Leo Moss was described as a handyman by trade. While most of his dolls were black, a few white dolls were made on commission.  According to Allgood's article, "Moss traded for chickens and vegetables to feed his family... The dolls were made from paper scraped from walls, boiled and made into a paste.  Each head was molded individually and colored with a spray gun used for killing flies.  Boot dye and stove blacking were used as the base color.  The glass eyes were brown and inset into the heads.  However, a few had painted eyes.  Their hair was molded and their nostrils were usually pierced.  Bodies were cloth with legs and arms mostly composition.  The bodies were made by Lee Ann Moss, Leo's wife, and some were from broken dolls they had been given...  Another source of doll parts was from a toy supplier (a white man from New York) who sold seconds, or defective parts, to Moss.  It is said that later this salesman ran off with Lee Ann taking the youngest child, Mina, with them.  Henceforth, the dolls had tears on their faces, always appeared very sad and dejected, and reflected the unhappiness he felt over this tragic event."

Allgood's five-page article, complete with beautiful black-and-white images of Moss dolls, continues on in the above-mentioned article.

View more Moss dolls here (an image--photographed or scanned by another doll enthusiast--of a page from Black Dolls an Identification and Value Guide, by Myla Perkins, Collector Books, 1993). 

Black Dolls an Identification and Value Guide Book II by Myla Perkins (Collector Books, 1995) offers additional information and images of Leo Moss dolls.

*I co-founded Black Doll-E-Zine in February 2002.

dbg (still in search of an elusive Moss doll)