Was Krazy Crazy?

Yesterday in the car we were listening to a NPR radio station  as the interviewer was interviewing an author who wrote an autobiography of George Herriman (1880-1944), creator of the comic cartoon character KRAZY KAT.   I did not catch the writer’s name.

If you ever looked at old comics from the comic page of old newspapers you might have seen KRAZY KAT.  When I think of the cartoon KRAZY KAT I think of a humpback trolley and a scrawny little rat throwing a brick and hitting KRAZY KAT or a uniformed policeman in the back of the head.  That seemed to be the punch line a lot of the time.

This writer said it was not known until about 35 years after his death, that George Herriman was black and passed for white.  He was Creole and born in New Orleans.  He had kinky hair that people always kidded him about, but he seemed to take the kidding good naturally.

He broke the law for many years for living in a white neighborhood when his area No Blacks were allowed.

Another thing he said, one of the characters in the strip like to paint himself black and when he did, none of his friends were friendly to him.  And then sometimes he painted himself white and people were be friendly to him.  I think  he was trying to get a message across.