Black doll museum is sisters' goal

Debra Britt and her sisters will share their collection of black dolls in Mansfield this weekend. (photos by John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

MANSFIELD - Like most little girls, Debra Britt loved her first doll; yet, when she cuddled the baby and gazed into the small white face, she saw nothing reflective of her own cultural heritage.

Britt, now 53, still has that 1950s-era Baby Bylo, complete with bald head and bright blue eyes. But in the years since then, she and her sisters also have collected more than 5,000 African-American dolls, many of which will be showcased this weekend at the Mansfield Holiday Inn.

Harambee: The Black Doll Collectors Convention - believed to be the first of its kind - is expected to draw more than 3,000 doll enthusiasts, historians, and artists over two days. Harambee means "coming together" in Swahili and espouses a West African ideal of a community working together, in this case, to promote cultural understanding and diversity through black dolls.

"I wanted a doll that looked like me," said Britt, who lives in Mansfield. "And I actually collected those dolls because I needed to find one that had round cheeks and a gap between its teeth, like me."

Britt and her sisters - Felicia Walker and Celeste Cotton, also of Mansfield; Kareema Thomas of Brockton; and Tammy Mattison of Boston - starting collecting dolls in childhood and got serious a decade ago after Thomas suffered a stroke. Getting out and hunting for dolls helped her walk and talk again and regain her interest in life.

In 2004, Britt and Walker began exhibiting and lending dolls and offering doll-making workshops. The Doll E Daze project has taught more than 17,000 library patrons, children, and families how to make African wrap dolls, something the sisters first learned from their grandmother.

The sisters are holding a collectors convention to meet two goals - promote diversity and raise funds to fulfill their long-held dream of opening a self-sustaining black doll museum.

Although negotiations are ongoing, Britt hopes on Sunday to be able to announce that she has finally secured a location for the museum in downtown Mansfield. There, thousands of dolls will be on display, released from storage in basements, boxes, sheds, a garage, and even an old bus on Britt's property.

The Philadelphia Doll Museum, with a collection of about 300 dolls, is believed to be the nation's only black doll museum.

Britt and her sisters plan to share space in their museum with other clubs and organizations, providing an open-door policy for classes, programs, and even events such as Girl Scout sleepovers. "Kids shouldn't have to look for places to go," she said. "I want all kids to be able to come in and get something out of it, even if it's only to look around and see what we've done and know that, in their lives, anything is possible."

The convention has drawn 240 exhibitors, some from outside the United States. Besides fashion shows, workshops, and a town-hall-style discussion on using dolls as teaching tools, a range of exhibits will showcase every type of black doll imaginable - baby dolls; Barbie dolls; cloth dolls from the 1800s; historical figures and cultural heroes; ceramic, wood, plastic, and paper dolls; miniature dolls and dollhouses; and even some life-size dolls.

Catching the spirit of the convention, stores in downtown Mansfield will showcase black dolls in windows and display cases. Kara Griffin, executive director of the Tri-County Chamber of Commerce, said the black doll convention will be huge for the entire area. The chamber serves Foxborough, Mansfield, and Norton.