On this day in 1937

May 1, 1937

Liz Montague’s Google Doodle honoring pioneering African American cartoonist Jackie Ormes. Credit: Courtesy of Google

Jackie Ormes became the first known Black cartoonist whose work was read coast to coast through the major black publication, the Pittsburgh Courier. 

Her cartoon told the story of Torchy Brown, a Mississippi teenager who sang and danced her way from Mississippi to New York City, mirroring the Great Migration, when millions of African Americans trekked from the South to the North, Midwest and West. 

In 1945, her cartoon, “Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger,” started. The strip proved so popular that department stores sold Patty-Jo as a doll. Five years later, Torchy returned, this time as a confident and courageous woman who dared to tackle such issues as race, sex and the environment. Readers applauded this strong model of what young Black women could be. 

In 2014, she was inducted into the Black Journalists Hall of Fame and was later featured by Google on its search page.

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