I am very disappointed to see how many people are STILL perpetuating the nonsense that Walt hated Jews, or other ethnicities. Allow me to clear this up for anyone who is unsure.
I will illustrate my point by quoting from the book "How To Be Like Walt: Capturing the Disney Magic Every Day of Your Life" written by Pat Williams with Jim Denney, because they word it so much better than I could, and they quote credible sources.
Some revisionist critics have accused Walt of racism or anti-Semitism, and a lot of intellectually lazy people have repeated the accusation without bothering to check the facts. It's hard to know where these charges originated, but some Disney scholars believe they may have originated in the union smear campaign against Walt during the 1941 strike. In any case, there should be no doubt about this: Walt Disney was NOT a racist.
"Walt was sensitive to people's feelings," composer Robert Sherman told me. "He hated to see people mistreated or discriminated against. One time, Richard and I overheard a discussion between Walt and one of his lawyers. This attorney was a real bad guy, didn't like minorities. He said something about Richard and me, and he called us 'these Jew boys writing these songs.' Well, Walt defended us, and he fired the lawyer. Walt was unbelievably great to us."
Artist Joe Grant, who is also Jewish, agrees. "Walt was not anti-Semitic," Grant told an interviewer. "Some of the most influential people at the studio were Jewish. It's much ado about nothing. I never once had a problem with him in that way. That myth should be laid to rest."
Floyd Norman, an African-American story artist, also rejects the racism accusation. He recalls that, during the 1960s, several civil rights leaders tried to force the Disney studio to hire more minorities. "The funny part," he said, "was that minorities weren't knocking at the gates to get in. The jobs were there if they wanted them and if they were qualified. It's like the old ruse that Walt didn't hire Jews, which was also ridiculous. There were plenty of Jews at Disney. Personally, I never felt any prejudice from Walt."
Katherine and Richard Greene, authors of Inside the Dream: The Personal Story of Walt Disney
, discussed this question in an article on The Disney Family Museum website. Like me, they interviewed hundreds of people who knew Walt well-and they, too, found that in all of those interviews, "not one recalled a single incident in which this alleged anti-Semitism reared its head." They observed:
"Jewish employees like Joe Grant and the Sherman Brothers all violently defend Walt's memory. Meyer Minda, a Jewish neighbor of Walt's in Kansas City, didn't remember any evidence whatsoever of anti-Jewish feelings in Walt or the Disney family. Even when Sharon dated a young Jewish man, her parents didn't voice any objections ... in fact, the authors of this essay are Jewish, and from the outset of a decade of research into Walt Disney have looked carefully through the record-letters, memos, conversations with reliable sources-for any evidence that Walt may have harbored a dislike of Jews. None was found.
Furthermore, in 1955 the B'Nai B'rith chapter in Beverly Hills cited him as their man of the year. Hardly an award likely to be presented to an anti-Semite." [*NOTE* In the special
Walt Disney: the Man Behind the Myth, it was noted that B'Nai B'rith spent months doing their own investigation into Walt's background. They were totally satisfied that these claims were completely unfounded.]
Those who truly knew the man will tell you-emphatically and unanimously-that Walt had a heart so big it embraced all of humanity, regardless of meaningless distinctions such as language or skin color. The only race he recognized was the human race, and nothing did his heart more good than to see people coming together from all over the world to share their hopes, goals and dreams.
From the section of the book on opening day at Disneyland:
On the green of Town Square, Walt stood beside California governor Goodwin Knight, along with three military chaplains representing the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish faiths.
Ever see a little Donald Duck short put out during WWII called
Der Fuehrer's Face? You should. No anti-Semite would ridicule Hitler that way:
When Der Fuehrer says "We is de master race!" We heil! (raspberry) Heil! (raspberry) Right in Der Fuehrer's Face ...
Walt didn't care about your status in life or income either:
Actor Dean Jones recounted another incident: A gardener at the Disney studio left some tools in an empty parking space. When a producer drove up and saw the tools in his space, he honked at the gardener and gave the poor man a chewing-out. Walt walked up and interrupted the producer's tirade. "Hold it!" he said. "Don't you ever treat one of my employees like that! This man has been with me longer than you have, so you'd better be good to him!"
Bob Thomas, author of
Walt Disney: An American Original, said:
"He was also tolerant when an animator was arrested on a homosexual charge. 'Let's give him a chance, we all make mistakes,' Walt said. The animator continued at the studio for many years afterward."
Another passage shows that Walt didn't let political differences drive a wedge between him and an employee:
Despite Walt's intense anti-Communism, he was never a McCarthyite or a "Red-baiter." He took a live-and-let-live approach to other political viewpoints. Herb Ryman recalled an incident that demonstrates the political tolerance of Walt Disney.
"Everyone knew that Walt was a committed anti-Communist," Ryman said. "Very patriotic and all that. So someone thought they would do damage to one of the writers on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
by telling Walt that the writer was a Red. They thought that Walt would fire him or investigate him or kick him off the picture. Well, Walt's answer was, 'I'm glad to know that. It's a relief that he's a Communist. I thought he was an alcoholic.'"
He even had sympathy for a man who had viciously tried to destroy his career-Charles Mintz, who had back-stabbed Walt by holding the rights to
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit hostage and hiring away most of Walt's key animators, forcing him to abandon Oswald and move on to a mouse:
Sometime later, Walt happened to run into Charles Mintz at Universal Studios. Mintz sat in the waiting room, hat in hand, looking nervous and lonely. Setting the past aside, Walt exchanged pleasantries with Mintz. Later, he wrote to Roy and said, "Poor old Charlie. It was sad to see him that way."
Walt even had love and respect for animals:
Lillian recalled that Walt had a soft spot in his heart for animals for as long as she knew him. "Walt wouldn't allow the gardener to set traps for the ground squirrels or gophers," she once told an interviewer. "He would say, 'They're little creatures and have to live like anybody else. They're not hurting anything." When Lilly protested that the animals were poaching all of the berries, peaches, and melons in her garden, Walt replied, "You can go to the grocery store to buy food. They can't."
Finally, to anyone who still chooses to believe that Walt was such an evil man, I say this: Have some class and don't talk about someone who isn't here to defend himself.
OK, I'll come down off my soapbox now ...
