Franklin gets his moment in the spotlight in ‘overdue’ new Peanuts special

(CNN) – A new animated special puts a spotlight on Franklin Armstrong, the first Black character in the Peanuts comic strip, more than 50 years after he made his debut. The Apple TV+ special Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin explores the character’s origin as a young boy from a military family who likes baseball, space and listening to Stevie Wonder, we come to learn. Related Stories “A Franklin special is really overdue,” Craig Schulz, who co-wrote the special and is the son of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, told NPR. “We get to go back and really find out where Franklin came from and really tell the whole story of this kid.” Franklin first appeared in a Peanuts comic in the summer of 1968, after Los Angeles school teacher Harriet Glickman wrote to Charles Schulz and urged him to integrate his comics. According to correspondence shared by the Schulz museum, Glickman believed Peanuts comics could help shape attitudes about race in America after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. In Franklin’s comic debut, he and Charlie Brown were shown playing on the beach together during a time when many beaches were still segregated. The new special nods to that scene...