Wayback Whensday-Jackie & Ollie
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Profiling Jackie Ormes and Ollie Harrington.
In an era when Black women were largely erased from the comics page, Jackie Ormes picked up her pen and rewrote the rules. As the first nationally syndicated Black female cartoonist,
Ormes shattered racial and gender stereotypes through her bold, stylish, and socially conscious characters, paving the way for generations of Black creators.
Gee NY for Shine My Crown gives us a brief profile of cartoonist Jackie Ormes.
Torchy Brown, made headlines in 1937. A fearless, fashionable teen from Mississippi, Torchy sang and danced her way to Harlem, echoing the journey of many during the Great Migration, when millions of African Americans moved north in search of opportunity and freedom.
In 1945, Ormes launched her groundbreaking strip “Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger,” which tackled everything from segregation and education to war and women’s rights, all through the voice of a perceptive little girl named Patty-Jo.
And that’s when I discovered the work of Oliver Wendell Harrington, who sometimes signed his work as “Old” Harrington or “Ol” Harrington or “Ollie” Harrington. He did many, many political cartoons during his very long career, but the first I saw of his work was a comic strip, “Jive Gray”.
A very brief profile of Ollie Harrington by Aashirs nani for Street Prophets but with links to more.
I haven’t found a compilation of the Jive Gray storyline, though. It stopped abruptly in 1951. The top of this page is general boilerplate. The part about Ollie Harrington and Jive Gray starts below the line. You can see political cartoons on this page, including a very early Jive Gray strip. And here is a perspective of Jive Gray and Old Harrington in depth.
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