When I was a smaller kid in the 50s the
theme of Sambo’s as depicted on restaurant
wall murals was a story about Sambo, a little
black kid in Africa who was chased around a
palm tree by a tiger. They ran so fast that
the tiger was churned into butter and Sambo
put the butter on his hotcakes or something
like that. Later, likely due to the racial
situation at the time the restaurant Sambo was
transformed into an East Indian kid. Imagine
that. They couldn’t insult black people anymore
so they switched to East Indians. I guess at the
time there wasn’t enough Indian immigrants to form
a protest group. Think I will Google the story of
Sambo to find out what really maybe happened.
There are no tigers in Africa, only India and China
I have the children’s picture book, copyright 1961. It’s about a kid in India, his mom is named Black Mumbo and his dad Black Jumbo. No tigers in Africa, either.