Mr. Schulz wrote back to Ms. Glickman within two weeks, but only to tell her he couldn’t fulfill her request. Mr. Schulz assented, though he again expressed reluctance to introduce a black character into “Peanuts.”Ms. Glickman wasted little time in enlisting her friend Kenneth C. Kelly, a black father of two, who told Mr. Schulz, essentially, to get over his anxiety. Ms. Brandon-Croft was 10 years old in 1968, and she told me: “I remember feeling affirmed by seeing Franklin in ‘Peanuts.’ ‘There’s a little black kid! Like a lot of “Peanuts” fans, I wish Franklin had been given greater depth and more to do. Franklin and Peppermint Patty (and Marcie) attended a school on the other side of town from the strip’s core characters.

Source: New York Times January 13, 2018 19:30 UTC