Meet Melody Ellison, the newest doll to join American Girl’s BeForever line. A 9-year-old African-American girl, Ellison’s story takes place in 1960’s Detroit during the Civil Rights Movement. Heavily influenced by the Motown music scene, as well as the role Black churches played during the Civil Rights Movement, Melody loves to “sing and blend her voice with others in harmony.”
Much like previous Black dolls released by the popular doll maker, including Addy Walker, who “escaped to a new life” in “1864,” Ellison’s debut comes at a time of racial tension in the Untied States. Take for instance the backlash over Beyoncé’s Super Bowl halftime performance paying tribute to the Black Panthers, the Oscars controversy, or the recent attack on a Florida teen who faced expulsion after wearing her natural hair to school. Needless to say, Ellison could not have come at a better time.
American Girl, of course, follows Barbie, who recently announced the evolution of their fashionistas line, offering a wide variety of diverse figures in different skin tones rocking curly faux-hawks, tight red curls and afros. Not to mention the Sheroes collection, which honored two-time Academy Award and four Golden Globes winner, writer and director Ava DuVernay. Or Zendaya’s doll, which sold like hot cakes, honoring her commitment to “standing up for her culture.”
And while the Civil Rights era doll’s debut has somewhat fallen through the cracks and doesn’t necessarily highlight a specific public figure, her story is just as important. Ellison is representative of an era that birthed Civil rRghts activists like Rosa Parks, who refused to surrender her bus seat to a White passenger, spurring the Montgomery boycott and other efforts to end segregation. Or educator Amelia Boynton Robinson, who after being brutally beaten for helping lead a 1965 Civil Rights march, which became known as Bloody Sunday and drew national attention to the Civil Rights Movement, championed voting rights for African Americans. She was also the first Black woman to run for Congress in Alabama.
In addition to Melody’s release planned for this summer, is a book titled No Ordinary Sound. In the pages, author Denise Lewis Patrick is said to highlight “the issue of separation based on just the color of your skin,” something she dealt with on a daily basis growing up in the South.
If you ask us, Ellison’s debut is a win for all Black girl’s around the world trying to hold onto a little piece of their heritage.
