In our country's current state of civil unrest, it is important to amplify Black voices. Now more than ever, we need to do our part to erase racism, exclusion, and prejudice against Black people. The animation industry is largely dominated by White males. This article features a list of six notable Black animators and pioneers in their field.
Taylor K. Shaw
Taylor K. Shaw is the founder and CEO of the studio Black Women Animate. The studio's website says that it's the first and only animation studio "designed to improve the representation of Black women in the animation." The company consciously hires women of color to bring a much-needed diversity into the industry. It trains talents, offers production services, creates original content, and has partnered with animation companies such as Cartoon Network. Taylor K. Shaw is a visionary changing the world of animation for the better.
Peter Ramsey
Peter Ramsey is best known for his films Rise of the Guardians and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. He won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for the latter, becoming the first ever African American to do so. In addition to his two major directing credits, he's also served as a second unit director, storyboard artist, and illustrator on a plethora of films and TV series over the past three decades, including Independence Day, Fight Club, Puss in Boots and many more.
Pilar Newton
Pilar Newton was quickly promoted from an intern to a freelancer when she started working for John R. Dilworth's Stretch Films, working on Cartoon Network's Courage the Cowardly Dog and segments for Sesame Street. During her nearly 21 years in the industry, she worked on MTV's Daria, and also was an artist for children's books based off of Nickelodeon's Rocket Power. Newton now runs her own 2D animation studio, Pilar Toons.
Floyd Norman
Upon his hiring in 1957, Floyd Norman became the first African American artist at The Walt Disney Company. This was a huge deal, given the racism in the animation industry, and in America in general, at the time. Norman contributed the likes of Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and The Jungle Book. In 1966, Floyd Norman left Disney to co-found Vignette Films, Inc., one of the first companies to make films about Black history. Later in his career, he returned to Disney and worked films such as Mulan and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He even worked with Pixar on Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc.
Bruce W. Smith
Bruce W. Smith is best known for creating and directing Disney Channel's The Proud Family. He founded Jambalaya Studios for the production of this series. The Proud Family was Disney Channel's first animated series with a young Black girl as the lead. Smith created this show loosely based off his own family -- an African American family living in the suburbs. He went on to be the supervising animator for Dr. Facilier in Disney's animated film The Princess and the Frog, which featured the studio's first Black princess. He's worked on other films such as Frozen and Wreck-It-Ralph. Recently, he co-directed Hair Love, an award-winning short film about a Black father who must do his daughter's hair for the first time.
Sonya Carey
Sonya Carey is the Head of Studio Operations at Portfolio Entertainment. Before this, she worked her way up the industry ranks, beginning at MetroLight Studios, with her first credits being on Ren and Stimpy. She would go on to run her own studio called Make a Scene. She was in charge of the ink-and-paint department on The Princess and the Frog, Winnie the Pooh and The Proud Family Movie.
Ian Jones-Quartey
Ian Jones-Quartey was the supervising director and an executive producer on Steven Universe until 2015. The show broke grounds for LGBTQ+ representation on kids television and won an Emmy, Peabody, and a GLAAD Media Award. After leaving Steven, Jones-Quartey went on to create his own action-comedy series OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, which lasted three seasons on Cartoon Network. On his show, he voiced the alien Radicles, one of his many voice acting roles. Previously, he worked on Adventure Time as a storyboard supervisor. His webcomic RPG World won Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards in 2001 and 2002, and his webseries nockFORCE showed off his rapping ability.
LeSean Thomas
LeSean Thomas is an animator, producer and director who has worked on both Japanese and American productions. His most recent work is as creator of the show Cannon Busters, a Netflix anime series. Previously, he made the pilot Children of the Ether for Crunchyroll. He was the supervising character designer and co-director of Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks, which won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Comedy Series and a Peabody Award. He did storyboards for The Legend of Korra and was supervising director on Black Dynamite.