http://www.treesandthings.com/story/2008/12/1/21658/6173 Forty-odd years ago, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/11/27/black-people-cant-swim-c/">Charles Schulz introduced Franklin</a>, Peanuts' first Black character. Segregation and racial politics were a hot-button issues in 1968, and United Feature Syndicate had concerns about how a desegregated Peanuts would play in the South. To Schulz's credit, he felt strongly enough about Franklin as a character and about the Peanuts gang's seeing his ethnicity as a non-issue to <a rel="nofoll en-us Tue, 2 Dec 2008 13:29:14 EST string http://www.treesandthings.com/search/