Charlotte Nightingale (right)
Just when I think I have read and seen it all somebody draws my attention to a new level of foolishness.
Via The Telegraph
A retired midwife from Hampshire is defying convention by selling the toys in an effort to reclaim black heritage and raise money for charity.
Charlotte Nightingale, originally from Ghana, is selling her Golly dolls at fairs, school fetes and village shows and wants people to re-think the taboo surrounding them.
The grandmother, 65, offers the dolls in pinstripe trousers and red jackets at £12 for a medium and £17 for a large, and even dresses up as a golly herself when she sells them.
The profits raised from her “Bring Golly Back” campaign have helped to fund education and agricultural projects in west Africa and so far she has raised more than £2,000.
Originally made by mothers for their children in west Africa, the tradition of Golly dolls travelled to the US during the slave trade. Continue Reading….
When this story was first brought to my attention I refused to believe that any of it was true. First I thought this was the work of a spoof news website and then I thought Charlotte was a struggling comedian trolling us for attention. But sadly I was wrong on both counts. Articles later found on The Times and The Telegraph websites confirmed that Ghanaian born Charlotte Nightingale is DEAD SERIOUS.
Charlotte claims the tradition of Golly dolls travelled from West Africa to the US during the slave trade. In all my years of living, I have NEVER heard of this connection between those racist dolls and West Africa.
On her website Gollynomics (yes you read correctly…Gollynomics) it states the following:
The black dolls were first made by mothers and grandmothers in Africa for their children and handmade from old fabric and cloth.
The black dolls were first made by mothers and grandmothers in Africa for their children and handmade from old fabric and cloth.
The Dolls were very colourful, with big eyes and smiley face. It was a tradition.
This tradition travelled to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade, where black mothers and grandmothers continued to make black dolls for their children. The children called the dolls Golly a variation of ‘Dolly’.
WHY?
Read below the history behind the creation of the Golly.
The golliwog, golliwogg or golly is a black fictional character created by Florence Kate Upton that appears in children’s books in the late 19th century usually depicted as a type of rag doll. It was reproduced, both by commercial and hobby toy-makers as a children’s toy called the “golliwog”, and had great popularity in Europe and Australia into the 1970s. The doll is characterised by black skin, eyes rimmed in white, clown lips and frizzy hair.
There is no mention here of “the tradition of Golly dolls travelling from West Africa to the US” Charlotte, so I will need you to show me proof of this piece of hidden history ASAP!
What is wrong with this woman??? Haven’t we suffered enough? Charlotte has to be stopped.
MAD NEWS UK 
Naaaaa, she is 65 so i know this cannot be some kind of trolling. I wonder where her kids or grandkids at?
Mind you, i bet she is one of those types who are trying so hard to mix with those middle-class types in Hampshire or has a long term husband or boyfriend called Dave who is from East End or West Midlands…….sigh. Bless you charlotte, do you, but stay away from kids loool. no even going to read those articles.
Why is it always some people of “black” culture in England that comes up with these strange reclaim nonsense….you never hear Jewish hertitage people “claiming” to take back the trauma by collecting Nazi memorabilia???
The woman is dangerous! What is she thinking??? If they were making dolls in West Africa back then, I doubt the dolls looked like golliwogs.
What in the world?? Why? That is not the way to ‘reclaim heritage’.
http://www.tiffanyafiawrites.com
Wow…. Black Grandma in crisis