Finding Black Santa on the Coast isn’t always easy. Local businesses are changing that.
During his first Christmas season as a father, Derek Hillard embarked on a quest for a Black Santa.
Hillard, who was born and raised in Gulfport, had little doubt he would be able to find one to take photos with his baby girl. But he knew it wouldn’t be as simple as walking into Edgewater Mall and getting in line.
After posting in the MSGC Black Owned Business Network Facebook group, he found a photo shoot organized by a local photographer at a popular salon. Samuel Smith— a 68 year old who says his full white beard attracts attention from children year-round— played Santa. Hillard’s six-month-old daughter, Zylah, didn’t want to leave his lap.
“That was my goal, to start her off young, so she can see more Black people in the ways that we celebrate,” he said. “I would put that in the same category as seeing a Black president. It makes you feel like you can be anything you want to be.”
This year, Black Santas are appearing at Disney parks for the first time, and Old Navy hosted a Santa Boot Camp to recruit Santas of color.
But on the Coast, Black Santas rarely, if ever, appear at the biggest Christmas events. Edgewater Mall has three Santas who rotate shifts every holiday season, and no one can recall ever seeing a Black man in the role.
Instead, Black photographers and event organizers on the Coast have recruited their own Santas for photo shoots in recent years, aiming to expand kids’ perceptions of what Santa looks like, and of what Black people can do and be.
“It lets kids know that, especially for African American kids, Santa Claus isn’t always white,” said Gulfport photographer Brian Pearse, who organized the photo shoot Hillard attended. “The reality is, if he’s coming down your chimney, he’s not.”
More Black Santas on the Coast
When Brian Pearse decided to organize a Black Santa photo shoot for the first time in 2019, he didn’t have to look far for the perfect Santa: Samuel Smith, a fellow member of First Missionary Baptist Church in Handsboro, has had a bushy beard for nearly his entire life, and children have always been drawn to him.
Smith’s one concern was that he didn’t have a little round belly that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
“He said, ‘You’ll be sitting down, they won’t notice,’” Smith said.
It was his first time playing Santa, but it came naturally to the father and grandfather.
“I just went there, got dressed, smiled and let the little kiddies come to me,” he said.
In 2018 and 2019, Hancock County NAACP President Gregory Barabino helped organize a “Soulful Christmas” event at the historic 100 Man Hall in Bay St. Louis, featuring photos with Black Santa.
“We gotta create these things if we want cultural representation,” he said.
The radical history of Black Santa
Santa has been a part of Black families’ Christmas festivities on the Coast for generations.
Smith remembers a congregation member playing Santa at Riley Chapel United Methodist Church when he was growing up in Gulfport in the late 1950s. And Hillard has a photo of himself with a Black Santa at his Gulfport Head Start in the 1980s.
Drena Ozene, a podcast host and influencer who grew up in Gulfport, never went to take photos with Santa, who was always a white man.
“I heard growing up, other people’s dads saying, ‘Ain’t no white man bringing my kids presents!’” said Ozene. “‘I’m Santa Claus.’”
This year, she helped organize a health and wellness fair with the East Biloxi Community Collaborative on Saturday, Dec. 11, which will feature a Black Santa.
“It’s something that everybody wants even if they don’t put it up but one time a year, just to see their kid with Santa Claus,” she said.
Black Santa has a radical tradition in the United States. During the Civil Rights Movement, groups like the NAACP used Black Santa floats to highlight discrimination.
During Black Christmas parades in Chicago in the late 1960s, Black Santas wore a velvet daishiki and offered a Black Power salute. In 1969, Santa’s float was covered in photos Illinois Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton who had recently been killed by Chicago police.
The 1973 song “Santa Claus is a Black Man” riffed on “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause,” aiming to give Black children a Christmas song of their own.
But when Black Santas have assumed positions in majority-white spaces, they have often been met with backlash. When Larry Jefferson became the first Black Santa at Minnesota’s Mall of America in 2016, he was the target of racist comments online.
Ozene said she’d expect a similar reaction on the Coast.
“I’m sure if they put a Black Santa at Edgewater Mall, Edgewater Mall would get all kind of hate mail,” she said. “I just think that a lot of people never had to think about it because in America, everything has just been very white for a very long time.”
‘What’s the race at the North Pole?’
Santa casting and hiring at Edgewater Mall has been run by a Mobile-based company called Instant Photo Corporation of America for about a decade. IPCA hires Santas at six malls across five states, said Marie Johnson, vice president of operations. They aim to have three Santas at each location, so no one gets overworked. Johnson said that the company has never hired a Black Santa, nor received an application from a Black person.
“I’ve probably been asked three times by a family, and my answer to that is strictly, we go by the traditional Santa that all children have just grown up with,” she said. “It’s not a race thing.”
The company does hire a Hispanic Santa who is fluent in Spanish for a mall with a large Hispanic clientele outside Chicago.
Johnson said she thinks it’s important that the Santas hired for each location look similar to each other.
“If you have one that’s so different from the other, the kids are not gonna think either one of them is the real Santa,” she said. “It’s just somebody in the red suit.”
Krystal Ben, owner of Hair Fetish salon in Gulfport, opened her business to host Pearse’s Santa photo shoot in 2019. She pointed out that debating the race of a “make-believe” character veers into the absurd.
“Santa can be whatever color we want him to be,” she said. “What’s the race at the North Pole? Are there Black people there? Are there Asians there?”
‘I know that you the real Santa Claus’
This year, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has grounded some Santas’ sleighs.
Pearse said he didn’t want to put vaccine-ineligible kids and older adults at risk by organizing a Santa photo shoot, but he hopes to bring it back in the future.
In addition to the wellness fair at the Gruich Center on Dec. 11, Biloxi’s Ward 2 Christmas Parade on Dec. 18 will include a Black Santa, said Councilman Felix Gines.
This year, the usual Santa for the kids’ Winter Fest party at Keesler Air Force Base dropped out. Lorenzo Hinton, youth director at the base, said the Force Support Squadron commander immediately knew who would replace him: Lonnald Carter, a youth programs employee at the base known for his generous personality and ability to connect with kids.
Hinton was a little worried about informing Carter that he’d been “voluntold” for the job.
“I hate to use the Santa colloquialism, but he kind of had a little twinkle in his eye,” Hinton said. “He was like, ‘That’s a really big honor.’”
At first, Hinton didn’t understand what he meant.
“Then the Iightbulbs went off,” Hinton said. “‘Cause I’m sure the question’s gonna come up, and I‘m ready for that question— ‘Santa Claus isn’t Black!’ And he said, ‘I can’t wait to have that conversation with them.’”
On Dec. 3, Carter donned a red suit and a beard and took photos with kids until it was time to return to the North Pole.
An interaction with one boy left an impression.
Carter asked what he wanted for Christmas. They took a photograph together. As the boy was leaving, he turned back to Carter and said, “I know that you the real Santa Claus.’”
