Baby Nancy: The First Black Doll Ever Girl Of Color Can Relate To Enters Hall Of Fame

Melanin Dripping. Proud Afro Hair. Ethnically Correct Black Girl Features – Baby Nancy rightly shook the toy industry, rewriting the narrative and yes we can’t help but shout it loud – #BlackGirlsRock

Representation Matters.

Baby Nancy, a 13th inch black doll made her American Toy Fair debut in 1969, breaking cultural barriers in toyland. Nancy was a creation of Shindana Toys, a new comer in the industry which launched in California by Operations Bootstrap Inc.,

Although other dolls followed, black and non black by the makers later on, pioneering Baby Nancy was the deal.

Unlike her predecessors spotting slick hair, pigtails and non-identical typical black girl facial features, Nancy is authentic to the core with every detail of her ethnicity put in her creation, most strikingly however is her natural hair which give a more realistic appearance

On Thursday Nov. 5, baby Nancy made history by being inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame.

She was one of three toys honored in 2020 for its creativity and popularity over time. Sidewalk chalk and the wooden block game Jenga were the other 2 honorees.

Shindana Toys shutdown in 1983 due to financial problems, but Baby Nancy “still stands as a landmark doll that made commercial and cultural breakthroughs,” creator Michelle Parnett-Dwyer said in a press release.