Denise Lewis Patrick Talks Melody Ellison's Story, Racism & That Hair Flip
American Girl Author Denise Lewis Patrick Talks Melody Ellison’s Story, Racism & That Hair Flip
We’ve been speaking about the release of the latest American Girl doll, Melody Ellison for months now. But, as you know, every American Girl has a story. And Melody Ellison’s story was written by Denise Lewis Patrick. We had the opportunity to speak with this children’s author about the advisory board, including the late Julian Bond, who helped create her story, the importance of the doll’s hair, and the timeliness of Melody’s story in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement.
You said that segregation was something you dealt with as a child. Can you share some of your experiences?
I grew up in Louisiana in a relatively small town. And the block where my family lived was kind of the dividing line between the Black community and the White community and their part of the town. Literally, we the house on the middle of the block. It was not necessarily every single day but certainly it was there, hovering. My Catholic school was an all Black Catholic school and we were very aware that there was a White one. And with Melody, the most direct instances of discrimination that she herself experiences are some that are loosely based on my childhood experiences in the community. Our town didn’t really have any major marches when I was a kid but it was the everyday stuff. The library—everything was separate. There was a Black public library and a White public library. I remember distinctly the day that our mother—because that was really, in many instances, the only way things changed. Because they closed the Black library and there was only one. And I remember the day my mother took my brother and me to register at the new library. Nothing happened but it was still so different, even physically different. We passed by that place several times a week and had never been in.
It was kind of nice to write Melody’s story in Detroit because they had a thriving, Black business community, and that was something I didn’t grow up with so that was nice and a nice way to show African Americans were supporting each other in all kinds of ways.
How did those experiences affect you as a child? Did it become the norm or how do you remember feeling about these instances?
I guess it was a bit of all of that stuff. I didn’t live everyday thinking ‘Oh I’m going to experience something awful. Oh, I’m going to be excluded.’ There was a guy who lived on the other end of the block, sat on his porch and used the N word, under his breath, sometimes not under his breath as we walked by. As my father walked by. We knew that that was something he shouldn’t have been doing. We did react to it. We did not fear him or feel that we didn’t have a right to be walking down our own street. So it was kind of a mixed reaction in some ways. One of the things personally, I felt as a child was one of the White neighbors had a niece that came by and we would play together in the yards, all the time. And by the time we got to high school, she worked at the movie theater, in the ticket booth. So I went down with some friends to go to the movie theater—that also, by the way, had been segregated. We sat upstairs for many years. But at this point, you could sit anywhere—So I went and said, ‘Hi.” And she looked right through me as if she had never seen me before. Now, I had been in her aunt’s house to get water because we were playing. So I was stunned for a hot second and then I was really angry. I remember that feeling. And then my feeling was ‘Ok, this is how that is.’ I have thought about it many times over the years and still not understood—as much as I would like to understand— what her thought process was.
The Julian Bond was also on the advisory board. So you can speak about him and the role the advisory board played in bringing this character to life?
The advisory board was absolutely amazing and, I would say, invaluable to me. Especially because I got to meet them at the beginning of the project. The very first interaction I had was with Dr. JoAnn Watson, who grew up in Detroit, the day that I flew in. I’d never been to Detroit before. And we did a ride-around. She was talking, remembering and talking and telling. And through her eyes the community became real to me. That was my first day and then we had dinner and continued the conversation. It was about the feel and the reality. And that was what was so great about that particular group of people. Mr. Bond…just one of my childhood idols. So I had to chill out as I was directly across the table from him, thinking about seeing him on tv when I was a kid. He was wonderful, very nice, very funny. Very easy to talk to.
And to me, a lot of people have asked why it’s set in Detroit. And as parent, I know that the way that the way that kids are exposed to the movement, if at all in schools, we know that the movement was going on across the entire country. And different things were happening. And some of them took off from each other. So I think it’s really important that, as we try to give our history real shape in this country, it’s really important for us to understand what was going on everywhere. And for many of us, our knowledge is so narrow, that we need to broaden it. And so to me, setting the story in Detroit was an opportunity to broaden on knowledge on what was going on in our history in regards to the Civil Rights Movement and Black Equality. And what the issues were because the issues were broader r than just ‘I can’t go into this store.’ or ‘Somebody says something horrible to me or calls me out of my name.’ And I think a lot of our young people don’t really understand that it was that broad before. It always has been.
That leads me to my next question. Children today live in a different time. The education system is lacking and then Barack Obama is the only president they really know…so how do you explain segregation, inequality and injustices in a way that they can understand?
Just because of what you just said. We know that it is such a complex issue. This was another approach that I took, in the back of my head, from the beginning of the writing. You had to break down, what does justice mean to a six-year-old, seven-year-old, eight-year-old? What does fair mean? And that’s the word that they get. You can have a four-year-old saying, ‘It’s not fair.’ They understand that. So for me, the challenge was to frame what Melody was going through in the context of fairness.
- Lenny Kravitz Maintains Rock God Status With Bubble Bath Thirst Trap And A Phone Call From Denzel Washington During Performance
- New TLC Show ‘Seeking Brother Husband’ Showcases Polyandrous Sisters
- Anita Baker To Embark On Nationwide Tour For The First Time Since 1995
- Adonis Dfetty Immediately Stirs Up Drama And Fist Fights In ‘Bad Boys Texas’ House
- Wendy Williams’ Son Kevin Hunter Jr. Evicted From Miami Apartment
I know you studied journalism initially but what drew you to write for children?
I never thought I would be writing for children. I thought that when I came out of college as a journalism major, that I would be write for a magazines and that I was going to be doing feature type articles. And I ended up getting a job at Scholastic working in their magazine division. So it was news, I was writing news for kids and features because the staffs were small and it was a lot of work. And it was a really intense introduction to writing for kids. But because it was non-fiction and it was actually news, I always say that’s where I learned how to write for kids because it’s not about condescension. It’s about how do you explain these things so a kid could make sense of it.
Leaving Scholastic, I went into children’s publishing. I did a little educational stuff and then freelance stuff. I kind of found myself in it but I did enjoy it. And ten years in, my husband and my girlfriend, who’s since passed away, said, ‘Why aren’t you doing your own stuff?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ And they said, ‘Why don’t you know?’ So my girlfriend, who was also working in publishing, called me and said, ‘I found you an agent. And I told her all about you. And you’re going to call her.’ And I was like ‘You’re so bossy. What are you doing?’ My first picture book, Red Dancing Shoes was published as a result of that and did really well. And I was hooked on doing it and the freedom of telling the things that I wanted to tell.
You’ve worked with American Girl before. How was the experience working with Cecilé vs Melody’s stories different?
I would say the biggest difference is probably socioeconomic. Because Cecile being a free girl of color, in New Orleans, at that time, actually was more prosperous than many of the other non-people of color in New Orleans at that time. It was important to show that at that time it was important to show Black professionals. I would say Cecile, even though there were things going on, she wouldn’t have been aware. Totally different cultural and economic situation than Melody.
Melody is kind of dearer to me because that was my time.
Tell me about the role hair played in the creation of Melody the doll and her story.
That was a big discussion because we talked about growing up— and that was interesting too — because there were four Black women on the board we all grew up in different parts of the country. And we talked about how that was such a big part of Black culture. As a little girl, you wouldn’t have bangs. And then there was a whole side discussion, should she have bangs. And we said, well she can have bangs but they can’t be cut because nobody let us cut our hair, that was taboo. And we would have to wear a roller and you would roll it up really tight. And you wouldn’t have bangs anymore when your hair fell down, you’d come that back. But you could wear it down for special occasions. We had a whole hot comb discussion. And that was funny too because they brought in hair samples. And I like where the hair has ended up. We all wanted that little flip, even if we weren’t allowed to have it.
I grew up with the Addy doll and loved her story but when I got older, I saw other women my age were discouraged by the fact that Addy had a history in slavery. So do you think it’s important that Melody not have a history in slavery or that girls will be able to relate to her even more?
Again…complicated. Melody first. I think that the fact that Melody is, what I would call, contemporary history makes her more accessible to kids today, particularly right now. Five years ago, it might have been different because of the things that are going on in this country and in the world. And we won’t even get into the fashion and the music and the Motown connection, because Motown is forever too. So kids probably know that more than they know the movement. In many households, connections are being made in family discussions about things that are going on now and things that went on in the sixties and fifties.
Having sons, I didn’t have Addy. And I was aged out of Addy but I knew about Addy. I find that response very interesting; I think, because in reality that is our history. And on the one hand we have to accept that is a part of our history. All of it is a part of who we are in this country, living here and how we came to be where we are right now. I think it’s a matter of context. When you were a kid you might have loved the doll and then when you were 25 you might have said ‘why did she have to have been a slave?’ Well, many people were. That was the reality. Many people had this kind of life where they had to overcome all of the deficits of having been a slave, on a personal level. What’s amazing to me, which many people don’t know, is that in that period after Emancipation, the rate of Black people educating themselves was off the charts, off the charts. People went to all kinds of lengths to educate themselves and their children. They would look for teachers, they would pay for somebody from their community to go to school and come back to teach. And that’s a part of kind of who we are. And that awful situation is what made us hungry to create different kinds of lives. And to create the kinds of lives that we wanted and deserved. It’ll be interesting, twenty years down the line, to see what these little girls today say about Melody. Because who knows what will be going on in their world at that point. I think Addy was just as important as any of the other characters, as important as Melody in a different way because they form part of the whole.
Can you speak about the timeliness of the release of this story and the Black Lives Matter movement? And it’s not just about what’s going on here but all over the world, people are fighting for equality.
What I have to say about that is that it’s ongoing. And that the search for—the demand for justice and equal treatment and equal rights across the board, globally is an ongoing situation. And the importance of Melody’s story is to show that this is not something that’s over. The quest and the right that we all have to be treated fairly, is always there. We always have to be aware. We can’t be complacent. That’s a big word for little kids but I think in connecting—parents who are already trying to talk to their kids about the stuff that’s going on now—are making connections on some level. Yes, some things have changed but then there are other issues that we still need to be aware of, as individuals. We need to make sure that we are helping to promote equality of all kinds and not hindering the process. Or not feeling like, ‘Ok, I’m fine. So everything’s fine.’ I think we just have to have our eyes open.
Veronica Wells is the culture editor for MadameNoire.com. She is also the author of “Bettah Days.”
- Lenny Kravitz Maintains Rock God Status With Bubble Bath Thirst Trap And A Phone Call From Denzel Washington During Performance
- New TLC Show ‘Seeking Brother Husband’ Showcases Polyandrous Sisters
- Anita Baker To Embark On Nationwide Tour For The First Time Since 1995
- Adonis Dfetty Immediately Stirs Up Drama And Fist Fights In ‘Bad Boys Texas’ House
- Wendy Williams’ Son Kevin Hunter Jr. Evicted From Miami Apartment
