Charlie and Franklin
*On this date in 1968, Franklin appeared in the Peanuts cartoon. He was the first Black character created by Charles Shultz, the cartoonist who created Peanuts.
In the episode, Charlie Brown lost his beach ball; it was found and returned to him by a Black boy named Franklin. The episode ended with the two proceeding to build a sandcastle together. Just months after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, the simple encounter of two boys on a beach was how the cartoonist introduced the newest member of the Peanuts gang.
In 1994, Franklin’s last name (Armstrong) was announced in You’re in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown. This was a tribute to Robb Armstrong, the creator of the comic strip Jumpstart.
