Profiles In Black Cartooning: Orrin C. Evans

In celebration of Black History Month, CBLDF has partnered with Black Nerd Problems to spotlight Black comics creators and cartoonists who made significant contributions to free expression. Visit CBLDF.org throughout the month of February to learn more! If you were to call Orrin C. Evans bold in the pursuits he enjoyed in his life, it would be like saying the monuments in Egypt are bigger than average. More than that, Evans’ life work wasn’t so much being bold as it were surviving the best way he knew how. Whom the New York Times proclaimed “The Dean of Black Reporters,” Evans rose to a position of becoming one of the first comic book writers, as an outsider to comics themselves, and stepped into a limelight that had scarcely seen the likes of him. [divider type=”space_thin”]Evans’ roots of reporting, imaginative solutions and unique perspectives began at home in the early 1900s. At the turn of the century in Pennsylvania, his family did well, comparatively speaking. They lived in mostly white neighborhoods, thanks to his father working for the railroad and his mother being one of the first Black women to graduate from the Williamsport Teacher College. Despite that seemingly successful standing, things weren’t that way in the open, even at their own home. Evans’ father was lightly complected enough where he could and did pass for white at home and at work. In the presence of company, his mother would often keep up the facade and pretend to be the maid of the household, all t…