Several dozen people, including Schulz’s widow, Jean, and county Supervisors Chris Coursey and Lynda Hopkins, gathered to celebrate the unveiling of the new space.
In 1968, “Peanuts” comic strip creator Charles Schulz introduced his first Black character, Franklin Armstrong.
Franklin’s enduring friendship with good ol’ Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the “Peanuts” gang has had a lasting impact on the pop culture world and in Sonoma County, where Schulz lived and worked from 1958 until his death in 2000.
Franklin is a Santa Rosa fixture. His image is seen daily by travelers at the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport and attendees of the Schulz Museum and by students who pass his statue on the way to class at Piner High School.
And as of Friday, he will now be part of a new mural in the equally new community arts room for young people at The Hive, the headquarters of the Santa Rosa-Sonoma County branch of the NAACP.
Several dozen people, including Schulz’s widow, Jean, and county Supervisors Chris Coursey and Lynda Hopkins, gathered there Friday to celebrate the unveiling of the new space.
Besides Franklin, the new mural features Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Woodstock. It was created by a five-person team from Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates in Santa Rosa, which licenses and manages the copyright of the popular “Peanuts” comic strip and its characters.
“I designed the mural with Franklin and Charlie Brown sitting together under a tree. It ended up taking two eight-hour days to finish,” said Creative Associates senior staff artist Mary Shyne.
Atop his doghouse, Snoopy is at his typewriter typing, “It was a dark and stormy night,” while his tiny bird pal Woodstock zigzags through the air.
The local NAACP originally reached out to Peanuts Worldwide to establish a scholarship program but discovered there already was one in Franklin’s name, said local NAACP branch President Kirstyne Lange.
So instead, Marjorie Mann, a member of the local branch, worked with the “Peanuts” folks to create a space where young people can play and create their own art.
Based in New York, Peanuts Worldwide manages the intellectual property and licensing for the popular “Peanuts” comic strip characters.
In 2022, it teamed with Native Tongue Communications to launch “The Armstrong Project,” establishing annual scholarships — one student per institution — at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, both are historically Black universities.
This year’s scholarship winners, Noni Garrett from Howard and Camille Johnson from Hampton, attended the local event Friday and displayed their own works in the new young people’s art space.
Garrett’s multimedia poster, titled “A Touch of Us,” is “dedicated to Black, brown and Native American kids around the world.”
The theme of Johnson’s oil and acrylic painting and animated short film, both titled “Family Tree,” is how children see the world.
“This room is happiness and joy,” said Marissa Nance, founder of Native Tongue Communications. “We’re stoked to bring the Armstrong Project here.”
The project was prompted by the discovery that fewer than 4 percent of animators were people of color, she said. Since its inception, that percentage has risen into the double digits, she added.
To learn more about The Hive’s art space, email sonomasecretary@gmail.com.
You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5243. On X @danarts.
