User:StinGuth/Morrie Turner

Biography[edit]

Turner was raised in Oakland, California, the youngest child of a Pullman porter father and a homemaker and nurse mother. He attended Cole Elementary School and McClymonds High School in Oakland and Berkeley High School. He began drawing in the fifth grade, while attending Cole Elementary, but never received formal schooling in the medium.

Turner got his first training in cartooning via a correspondence course. During World War II, where he served as a mechanic with Tuskegee Airmen, his illustrations appeared in the newspaper Stars and Stripes. After the war, while working for the Oakland Police Department, he created the comic strip Baker's Helper.

When Turner began questioning why there were no minorities in cartoons, his mentor, Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, suggested he create one. Morris' first attempt, Dinky Fellas, featured an all-black cast, but found publication in only one newspaper, the Chicago Defender. Turner integrated the strip, renaming it Wee Pals, and in 1965 it became the first American syndicated comic strip to have a cast of diverse ethnicity. The strip featured children from a large variety of backgrounds including the black, jewish, latino, asian, and white races. The strip also featured characters with physical handicaps, including a child who was deaf and mute and a child who was in a wheelchair. Although the strip was only originally carried by five newspapers, it was picked up by more than 100 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968. The diverse cast of Wee Pals inspired the introduction of other minorities in comics, including the black characters Franklin in Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts and LT Flap in Beetle Bailey.

In 1970, Turner became a co-chairman of the White House Conference on Children and Youth.

Turner appeared twice as a guest on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, on May 7, 1971 and May 14, 1973. In his 1971 visit, Turner discussed his comic strip and how each of his characters were named, as he drew examples of his characters. In honer of African-American comedian Nipsey Russel Turner named the leading character of Wee Pals Nipper. On his return 1973 visit, he showed Fred Rogers pictures he had drawn of several of the neighbors in Fred's television neighborhood. Turner also presented a clip from his Kid Power animated series, which was airing Saturday mornings on ABC at the time. As well, during the 1972-73 television season, Wee Pals on the Go was aired by ABC's owned-and-operated station in San Francisco, KGO-TV. This Sunday morning show featured child actors who portrayed the main characters of Turner's comic strip: Nipper, Randy, Sybil, Connie and Oliver. With and through the kids, Turner explored venues, activities and objects such as a candy factory and a train locomotive.^{[citation needed].}

As the comic strip continued, Turner added characters of more and more ethnicities, as well as a child with a physical disability.

During the Vietnam War, Turner and five other members of the National Cartoonist Society traveled to South Vietnam, where they spent a month drawing more than 3,000 caricatures of service people.

For concerts by the Bay Area Little Symphony of Oakland, California, Turner drew pictures to the music and of children in the audience. During his later years Turner spent much of his time speaking to children at schools and libraries where he recounted stories about cartooning and his military service.

Turner launched the first in a series of Summer Art exhibitions at the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC) on June 10, 1995.