Blacks not allowed at Disneyland until the 1970s

[snopes]

Comment: Our office manager will not take her kids to Disneyland because
she was told that African Americans were not allowed there up until the
1970s. Is this true?

[Discouraged One]

I can't find any cite for it but I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. I don't know much about American History but wasn't segregation still alive well into the 60s? If so, then maybe Disney just didn't want to "alienate" their white audience who might not go there if blacks were around, whatever percentage that demographic might be.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Discouraged One

I can't find any cite for it but I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. I don't know much about American History but wasn't segregation still alive well into the 60s? If so, then maybe Disney just didn't want to "alienate" their white audience who might not go there if blacks were around, whatever percentage that demographic might be.

If one of the major family entertainment destinations servicing the Los Angeles metropolitan area had a policy of excluding blacks into the 1960s/70s, there would be plenty of cites for it.

- snopes

[Discouraged One]

Originally Posted by snopes

If one of the major family entertainment destinations servicing the Los Angeles metropolitan area had a policy of excluding blacks into the 1960s/70s, there would be plenty of cites for it.

I'm looking for a cite for it, to no avail. I'll keep searching though. The only hit I've found, discarding those about how Walt Disney was racist/racist Disney Characters, was a short news about how 4 black teens were ejected from Disney World because of their anti-loitering, anti-gang policy.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Discouraged One

I'm looking for a cite for it, to no avail. I'll keep searching though.

Let be more clear: You won't find any cites for it (other than people repeating the rumor) because it isn't true. If it were true, your first search would turn up several hundred Google hits on the subject.

- snopes

[Discouraged One]

Yeah, seems like I would have gotten that in the (very) long run. I did however, manage to find a link of it full of comments, some FOAF stories, even a link to an archived snopes thread. So it seems that there wasn't segregation.

[lord_feldon]

Originally Posted by Discouraged One

I don't know much about American History but wasn't segregation still alive well into the 60s?

Not in California. At least not officially.

[Johnny Slick]

This is like playing "Where's Waldo", only with black people. Where are you seeing the black woman, EQT?

[lord_feldon]

There's someone who appears to be black underneath the first arch from the left, just next to the handle-shaped things on the second pole.

[mags]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

This is like playing "Where's Waldo", only with black people. Where are you seeing the black woman, EQT?

It's a girl, and she's in the second photo on the page. You can't miss her if you're looking at the correct photo, because she is nearly centered, and it's fairly close up.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by Natalie

It's incredibly unlikely that such a high profile place as Disney World/Land could have violated the '63 Civil Rights Act without sanction.

1964, not 1963.

[Brad from Georgia]

Originally Posted by mags

It's a girl, and she's in the second photo on the page. You can't miss her if you're looking at the correct photo, because she is nearly centered, and it's fairly close up.

There also appears to be a black gentleman to the right, next to a woman wearing a blue hat. He is wearing a white shirt and tie, and he's in front of a turquoise pylon. Of course, at that distance he could be Latino or Caucasian with a dark complexion....

[Jonny T]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

This is like playing "Where's Waldo", only with black people. Where are you seeing the black woman, EQT?

here.im in ur post, padding ur chars

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by Jonny T

here.im in ur post, padding ur chars

Boom, there's your smoking gun.

[kanazawa]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

This is like playing "Where's Waldo", only with black people.

Can I have that as my new sig line...

[barbrainey]

True, not every state in the Union had segregation laws. The southern states were the ones who had the most stringent "Jim Crow" laws before the civil right movement. And no doubt many had segregated "whites only" amusement parks.

Corretta Scott King, in her book, My Life With Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote of such an amusement park. When the King family first moved to Atlanta in the early '60s there was an amusement park called FunTown. The King children begged to be taken there, but the place was for whites only. Finally in exasperation, Yolanda King, the eldest, told her mother that "you just don't want to take us to FunTown!" Mrs. King explained that the park was built by people who "are not good Christians." They didn't want black people to go there." Yoland jot upset so Corretta explained that this was what Dr. King was doing in his work. He was trying to make it possible for black children to attend any park to place they wanted. Later the Kings found out that FunTown had been quietly desegregated.

B. A. Rainey

[Skeptic]

Originally Posted by snopes

Comment: Our office manager will not take her kids to Disneyland because
she was told that African Americans were not allowed there up until the
1970s. Is this true?

Even if it was true, it's over 30 years ago. Get over it. Maybe she should fight against some injustice that is still happening.

[ganzfeld]

From the previous board:
http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/u...0;t=000374;p=1

[Tootsie Plunkette]

This site claims:

Sadly, history reminds us that Disneyland and most other amusement parks were SEGREGATED in those days.

but there's no citation for the "history."

[Johnny Slick]

I've been scouring the Yesterland.com website for the last few minutes looking for tangible evidence of black people in Disneyland pre-1970.

This looks like it's from the 70s, judging from the clothing, and can't be earlier than 1967. Also, having an African-American employee wouldn't preclude Disney from not allowing black people in there.

There appears to be an African-American leaning on the rails at the Coca-Cola stage, wearing a light blue and white shirt. The picture must have been taken some time between 1967 and the renovation of the stage in 1998, although it looks to me like it this was also from the 70s or *maybe* the early 80s.



I'm having a real time finding blacks in these pictures, though, for a couple reasons:

1. A lot of the pictures are of an entire attraction and as such the people in them are very, very tiny and in many cases hard to discern outside of their hair color and clothing.

2. Even in the pics with folks in the foreground there just aren't very many blacks in there. I do see a few Asians and lots and lots of white people but no blacks.

I don't think that Disneyland excluded black people. Snopes is right; if they did, there would have been some pretty big stories about it somewhere (googling "1960s Disneyland racism" brings up this thread as the #2 hit). I do think that there was a de facto, class-based exclusion of blacks and other minorities in the 50s and beyond, and the publicity stills distributed by the Walt Disney Co. don't have a single black patron I can find until the 80s at least.

ETA: Here are a couple images of competitors practicing for the Aunt Jemima Pancake Competition in




I am not 100% certain, however, that the African-American clearly depicted in the background was someone the park would have let in had they not been sponsoring this particular event.