HARRIET GLICKMAN PUSHED “PEANUTS” CREATOR TO ADD A BLACK CHARACTER

Harriet Glickman, who in 1968 persuaded Charles M. Schulz, the creator of “Peanuts,” to add an African-american character to his roster of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang, died March 27 at her home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. She was 93.

Her daughter, Katherine Mooremacmillan, said the cause was complications of myelodysplastic syndrome.

Glickman was a former schoolteacher in California Harriet when the Rev. MarGlickman tin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, shocking the nation and heightening her concern about what she saw as toxic racism that permeated society.

She began thinking of ways the mass media shaped the unconscious biases of America’s children, she later wrote, and “felt that something could be done through our comic strips.” She wrote to several cartoonists, including Schulz, urging them to add black characters to their strips.

At the time, “Peanuts,” which had been appearing since 1950, was syndicated in 1,000 newspapers and had tens of millions of readers, according to Benjamin L. Clark, curator at the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, Calif.

Glickman recognized that loyal “Peanuts” readers might be nonplused, or even annoyed, by a new character. So she wrote a letter to Schulz in April 1968, shortly after King’s assassination in Memphis, Tenn., that made a reasonable case for adding a black character while acknowledging the risks involved.

“I’m sure one doesn’t make radical changes in so important an institution without a lot of shock waves from syndicates, clients, etc.,” she wrote. “You have, however, a stature and reputation which can withstand a great deal.” Schulz replied later that month. Many cartoonists, he wrote, “would like very much to be able to do this, but each of us is afraid that it would look like we were patronizing our Negro friends.”

Schulz also responded to Glickman at the beginning of July that she should look out for a strip to be published toward the end of that month.

On July 31, 1968, Franklin Armstrong appeared in “Peanuts” for the first time, returning a beach ball Charlie Brown had lost in the ocean and then helping him build a sand castle. Nothing aside from the color of his skin set him apart from the other children in the strip. — © The New York Times Co.