Jackie Ormes and the Red Scare

Taina Cunion

How the Black female cartoonist used her powerful platform—and caught the attention of the FBI

Zoom on FBI files being held in hand in the right corner. To the left an agent is staring down on Zelda Jackson Ormes who sits under a bright overhead kitchen light The 2nd Red Scare of the 40s and 50s had Uncle Sam knocking down on the door of anyone who so much as looked at a book with a burgundy cover. Looking to thwart the plans of communist spies living in America, figures of the time such as Senator McCarthy and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover heightened tensions by leading massive investigations of government employees, celebrities, and regular civilians whose beliefs were colored in shades of red. Panel 2: Ormes sits holding a cup of coffee with two agents silhouetted across from her. A hand of one of the agents gestures as they speak to her. When the two FBI agents sat across Zelda Mavin Jackson Ormes on May 5th, 1953, they explained to her that “the Bureau has no concern with an individual’s ideals, desires for reform” so long as they were through “constitutional” means. Panel 3: Close up on Ormes’s Face, in the back perhaps you can see a draft table with sketches around it An interesting distinction to make towards a black woman in America whose constitutional rights depended on the county line she happened to fall within. Still, Ms. Ormes maintained her composure toward the two agents as they questioned her allegiance to her country. She answered their questions from the comfort of her home and studio with the next week’s draft of Patty Jo’ n’ Ginger waiting on her desk.

Panel 4: Switch to Ormes at her desk sketching a panel for a strip of the week. Close up on her hands holding pencil as she draws Patty Jo The first black woman cartoonist knew how to seize the power of a story, whether it was a one-line, one-panel snapshot, or an entire series. Her characters were black, beautiful, smart, funny, sensitive, and strong much like herself. Their presence in the funnies section of the Courier was a powerful form of resistance to combat stereotypical and harmful narratives about black women. More than just representation, Ormes used her platform to unapologetically critique those in power during the Jim Crow Era. Panel 5: Jump to the past- Ormes is reporting on a boxing match. One man punches the other in the face. Ormes watches from outside the ring with a pen and paper in her hands. She’s wearing a reporter hat As a young recent high school graduate in the late 1920s, Zelda Jackson found her voice while writing up reports on boxing matches and human interest stories. The small-town school newspaper editor from Monongahela, Pennsylvania launched her career after she got in contact with the publisher of the Pittsburgh Courier and persistently asked for a job there. Panel 1: Jackie Ormes stares in awe of a montage to her right. Protests from the Great Depression Era, Smoke stacks of factories blowing out, Philadelphia City Hall top as marker of location Her time as a journalist opened her eyes to her new home in the city and the people who lived there. Panel 2: Zelda & Earl running with arms linked while in wedding clothing. Ormes holding in her hand a small bouquet. She met her husband Earl Ormes through the work of a matchmaker friend and they were married in 1931.

The Birth of Ormes’ Daughter. Zelda holds the baby in her arms, Earl stares lovingly down at the two. The couple lived and worked in the city for years before the birth of her daughter Jaqueline. Panel 4: Zelda kisses her daughter goodnight on the cheek. A year or two into Little Jackie’s life, things became difficult for the child. Her parents took her to a hospital where she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Panel 5: The couple stands in the doorway of the child’s bedroom. It’s dark except for a faint glow emerging from the hallway, silhouetting them. Zelda leans into Earl for strength standing, the grief impacting her. Panel 6: The couple stands in the same pose as the former panel, now in a cemetery under an umbrella as it rains down around them Jaqueline passed away at the age of 3 years old. Ormes was devastated after the loss of her daughter, and never had any other children.

Jackie Ormes typing at a typewriter in a busy newsroom at the Chicago Defender Towards the end of the strip's run and after living near her husband’s family in Ohio for a few years, the couple moved out to Chicago to join the rising, bustling, black community there. Jackie Ormes once again walked right into the newsroom of The Defender and got hired on the spot. She was a writer and reporter formally and worked outside that scope as a cartoonist from the 40s onward. Recreation Patty Jo comic Despite having a light enough complexion to pass as white, Ormes was committed to the black struggle and black representation in her art. That’s why in 1945 she started up with Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger, a one-panel-a-week series that followed a spunky little girl named Patty Jo and her patient sister older Ginger. Patty would make an observation like, [ It’s a letter to my congressman…i wanta get it straight from Washington…just which is the “American Way” of life, New York or Georgia???]. Ginger would react with a head shake or a nod or a side glance.

Ormes sketching out pages, the pages spiral downward in a montage of the little moments described Many of Ormes’s comics would tackle the politics of her moment, spoken through the voice of a curious child who has an idea of what is right and what is wrong. Even so, the comics maintained humor and wit. In 1945 as laborers demanded reform following the World Wars, Patty Jo called for a Chalkduster strike in her classroom and warned scabs to not get in the way. In 1947 Patty Jo tells her sister they should go buy some Atomic Bombs for the Fourth of July since they were far less regulated than fireworks at the time. Ormes, through Patty Jo, frequently called out the House Un-American Activities Committee and the shady ways they would pressure information out of those they suspected of communist beliefs. Additionally, for the 9-year duration of Patty Jo n’ Ginger, Ormes brought awareness to March of Dimes, a group with the National Infantile Paralysis Foundation which worked to create a cure and treatment for polio.

Jackie Ormes lovingly painting Patty Jo Doll's face In 1947, Ormes took on a new venture: creating a Black doll for kids to play with. The usual Black dolls of the time perpetuated stereotypes. Those narratives were beginning to be called out, specifically how they affected children. “An article in Playthings, a toy industry journal, stated in 1909, ‘One of the chief demands for negro dolls comes from little white girls who desire these dark playmates to be used as servants…as maids, coachmen, butlers and the like… the children themselves [black children] do not seem to want them.’” - (Goldstein p 161 – “Negro Dolls,” Playthings, June 1909, 67) Panel 1: A young black boy points towards a white baby doll. A checkmark and an x stand in for the child’s opinion. Ormes noticed this trend around the same time that Dr. Kenneth Clark and Dr. Mamie Clark were conducting the famous Doll Test. In the experiment, the couple asked black children to choose and explain their reasoning as to which they preferred: a white baby doll or a black baby doll. The experiment in the 40s examined how age and skin tone played into the children’s perception of the dolls and by extension themselves. Lighter-skinned children wanted to see themselves as the white dolls which they viewed as “pretty” and “clean”. Darker-skinned children grew upset upon realizing that they saw themselves as black dolls which they viewed as ugly.

In reference to Zelda Jackson’s paper dolls for Torchy Brown’s strips - Ormes stands with a collection of identities the FBI is assuming for her. Intellectual: beret, protest poster, glasses, proper female suit. Pseudointellectual: communist manifesto, winter hat, long trenchcoat Her civil rights advocacy, like many of her contemporaries, seemingly gave the FBI cause enough to call her in for questioning multiple times. An informant linked her and several others to alleged CP meetings between 1945 and 1946 and fraternizing with organizations suspected of communist activity such as The Chicago Artist’s Guild, The Cultural Club, and The Du Buois Theater Guild. While the FBI made note of her career they didn’t care to question her cartoons. Some notes different agents made regarding her testimonies go as follows: “ORMES impressed the agents as a very friendly and intelligent person who is primarily an idealist and is trying to advance the best interests of the Negro people…” “...it was apparent to the interviewing agents that the subject is not very well informed or intelligent but rather, a pseudo-intellectual type person, flighty in temperament, and not inclined throughout the interview to seriously consider what the agents were attempting to clarify…” Panel 3: Overhead shot of interrogation room. Ormes sits in her chair as the agents stare at her puzzled. “ORMES indicated that for some time she felt that the Communists were being investigated and persecuted because of their activities in breaking down racial barriers, exacting more benefits from capital interests for the working class and generally pressing for the advancement of common people, rather than for its supposed revolutionary aims and objectives…” The FBI eventually left her alone once they agreed she was not a communist threat.

Panel 1: Ormes putting her pen down Ormes retired from cartooning in the late 50s when growing arthritis in her hands caused great difficulty in her ability to produce pages at the weekly demand of newspaper distribution. She turned to advocacy in other ways, donating to organizations dedicated to carrying on the fight for a more egalitarian society. Panel 2: Jackie Ormes in old age with Patty Jo on one side and Torchy on the other Ormes defended the importance of her work at a time when her race, gender, and politics made her vulnerable to retaliation. While not nationally syndicated, her work was read and viewed by thousands across the country everywhere the Courier and its partner papers were distributed. Ormes took control of her narratives and those placed on her, paving the way for all the female cartoonists of color who came after her by walking right up and demanding her space in the columns.

This comic was created through Crucial Comix's editing program. Ari Yarwood and Al Benbow edited this comic.

Sources

Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum – Nancy Goldstein Collection on Jackie Ormes. Original box with the FBI/Justice Dept. file on Jackie Ormes.

Kenneth B. Clark & Mamie P. Clark, “Emotional Factors in Racial Identification and Preference in Negro Children,” The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 19, No. 3, Summer 1950. Accessible via JSTOR.

Nancy Goldstein, Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist, University of Michigan Press, 2008.

Gordon Parks photography featured in “Problem Kids,” Ebony, Vol. 2, No. 9, July 1947, p. 20-21. Information available at the Gordon Parks Foundation.

South Side Community Art Center Website, sscartcenter.org.