The man who brought the Civil Rights movement to the funny pages died this past Saturday, age 90. Here’s why he was so important.
The great ones change the world not with a bang but with a whisper. The really great ones manage to make us smile somewhere in there, too.
That was the power of Morrie Turner, the first African-American cartoonist to get a syndication deal. At its peak his strip Wee Pals reached 25 million people per day. That number is even more impressive when one remembers that Turner’s work only ran in five newspapers from 1965 to 1968.
Things changed after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Newspapers clamored for the strip that Turner modeled as a sort of “Black Peanuts,” and his syndication rose to 100 newspapers. A Saturday morning cartoon series followed. If you’re around my age you remember it fondly.
And if you’re around my age or younger you probably don’t remember the immense impact that Wee Pals and its related black history “Soul Corner” segments had on you because you were too busy smiling at Nipper and the gang, or marveling at the wonderful contributions of the people featured in “Soul Corner.”
That was the magic of Morrie Turner: The ability to change the world one happy kid at a time.