From one of Britain's most popular toys to the target of police raids: how a children's doll became a symbol of racism

• A pub just outside London has closed after it reignited a debate about Britain's racist history.
• The dolls, historically known as "golliwogs," have long divided opinions in British society.
• Insider has put together a brief history of the controversial figures.

A pub just outside London has been forced to close after it reignited a heated debate about one of Britain's most controversial toys and the nation's racist past.

Police officers seized several dolls, known as "golliwogs" or "gollies," from the White Hart Inn in Grays, Essex, last month as part of a hate crime investigation following a complaint.

The pub's landlady, Benice Ryley, has insisted that the dolls aren't racist, while her husband, Christopher Ryley, is under further investigation for a Facebook comment on a photo of the dolls hanging on a wooden beam, saying: "They used to hang them in Mississippi years ago," in an apparent reference to historic lynchings of Black people in the US Deep South. 

But Benice Ryley's refusal to accept the idea that the dolls are racist seems to be symptomatic of the British public's divided opinion on the dolls and perhaps reflects a lack of understanding of the history surrounding the figures.

It was announced that the pub, which was daubed with white paint and had its windows broken, closed earlier this week.

Beer suppliers Carlsberg and Heineken told the couple to stop serving its products, BBC News reproted. In addition, a maintenance company refused to work on the site, and the White Hart Inn was removed from the Good Beer Guide, per BBC News.

The display of 30 golliwogs went "against everything we stand for," a Heineken UK spokesperson said, per BBC News."We believe pubs should be places of inclusivity and respect for all people, regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, or gender."

As one of the lesser-known racist figures in the US, Insider has put together a brief history of how "gollies" went from beloved childhood dolls to symbols of racism. 

"A horrid sight, the blackest gnome"

The British-American author and illustrator Florence Kate Upton originally created the character.

In her 1895 book, "The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls," Upton first introduced her "Golliwogg" character, describing the doll as "a horrid sight, the blackest gnome," according to David Pilgrim, the founder of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia.

Pilgrim said that the doll, which is the "least known of the major anti-black caricatures in the United States," was a "grotesque" representation of Black people, usually presented "with very dark, often jet black skin, large white-rimmed eyes, red or white clown lips, and wild, frizzy hair."  

The physical version of the doll, and its presence in children's literature, became increasingly popular and commoditized across Britain throughout the 20th century, and it was found on postcards and pins and used as marketing for a best-selling jam, among other things.

The dolls were particularly popular in England and Australia in the 1960s and 1970s.

The connection to the racist image evoked by the doll and American minstrels — a form of blackface performance developed in the 19th century — is clear. That "sentimentalized plantation slavery as humorous and perhaps even desirable," according to Alexander Scott, a researcher and assistant curator at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. 

Even the use of the dehumanizing terminology is contentious, some argue for using the word in full in order to not shy away from its racist history, while others shorten the phrase to avoid its full impact. 

Scott told Insider it was "really jarring to see racial epithet used so liberally" in coverage of the issue, and there should be a concerted effort to de-normalize the term. 

Perpetuating racist stereotypes 

The term has historically been used as a racial slur across Europe, and there have been many accounts of the painful experiences of Black children encountering the images.

In British historian David Olusoga's book "Black and British," he recounts a time when a girl brought her blackface doll into school in the 1970s and was "plunged into a day of humiliation and pain."

He said it was difficult to see the word as "benign" after a note with the word wrapped around a brick was thrown into his family's window. 

But despite the long history of the racist trope, the debate over the doll's place in British culture continues. 

They are still sold online as collectible items, although sellers like eBay and Etsy have recently removed the "offensive" items from their listings. Some museums in the UK have also removed the dolls from their displays, while others have refused despite complaints.  

In 2009, the Queen's Sandringham Estate also apologized and stopped selling the dolls that were "causing offense" after the daughter of Margaret Thatcher, a former British Prime Minister, was fired from her job at the BBC for using the slur to refer to a professional tennis player. 

Changing attitudes? 

Grappling with racist symbols and imagery is indeed cross-Atlantic, as reflected in the changes made to rice packaging in the US or questions about the appropriateness of using images of Native Americans as sports mascots. 

The connections made to nostalgia — or "childhood history" — by those in favor of the doll's continued presence hints at a rejection of "political correctness," as well as the "British tendency to think about slavery as something that happened in the American South, rather than Britain being one of the main protagonists," Scott said.

But it does appear that there is some gradual shift in public opinion happening with the dolls.

A snap survey of 3,000 people conducted by YouGov for Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University, London, found that 27% thought it was racist to sell or display a golliwog doll, up from 20% in a similar survey in 2017, while 48% thought it was not racist, which was down from 63%.

Nevertheless, the enduring popularity of the blackface doll creates the impression "that we live in a post-racial society," Scott said.

Their continued normalization "denies an incredibly long and painful history," he added.