The Forgotten Moment When Superman Fought Prejudice Instead of Villains (1950)

It makes sense that Super­man would take a tol­er­ant view of immi­grants and oth­er minori­ties, giv­en that he him­self arrived on Earth as a refugee from the plan­et Kryp­ton.

The Man of Steel may strike you as an unlike­ly mouth­piece for pro­gres­sive ideals, but 1950 found him on a book cov­er, above, engaged in con­ver­sa­tion with a small crowd of most­ly white boys:

“…and remem­ber, boys and girls, your school – like our coun­try – is made up of Amer­i­cans of many dif­fer­ent races, reli­gions and nation­al ori­gins, so … If YOU hear any­body talk against a school­mate or any­one else because of his reli­gion, race or nation­al ori­gin – don’t wait: tell him THAT KIND OF TALK IS UN-AMERICAN. HELP KEEP YOUR SCHOOL ALL-AMERICAN!”

In oth­er words, cit­i­zens must steel them­selves to take action, because you can’t always count on a super­hero to show up and make things right.

The cheap paper jack­et, above, was dis­trib­uted to school chil­dren by the Insti­tute For Amer­i­can Democ­ra­cy, an off­shoot of the New York-based Anti-Defama­tion League.

Mean­while, a full col­or ver­sion of the 66-year-old illus­tra­tion has been mak­ing the rounds on social media. Let us con­sid­er it a place­hold­er. Even­tu­al­ly some­one will sure­ly take it back to the draw­ing board to add more girls, chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties, and chil­dren of col­or.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2017.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

1950s Bat­man Car­toon Tells Kids: “Don’t Believe Those Crack­pot Lies About Peo­ple Who Wor­ship Dif­fer­ent­ly”

Read Mar­tin Luther King and The Mont­gomery Sto­ry: The Influ­en­tial 1957 Civ­il Rights Com­ic Book

Dr. Seuss Draws Anti-Japan­ese Car­toons Dur­ing WWII, Then Atones with Hor­ton Hears a Who!

The Orig­i­nal 1940s Super­man Car­toon: Watch 17 Clas­sic Episodes Free Online

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er in NYC.