Age: 72
female
Melody Elizabeth Ellison is a nine-year-old girl living with her family in Detroit, Michigan, during the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Her parents are Will, who works in an auto assembly line, and Frances. Frances' parents (Melody's grandparents) are Frank Porter, a florist; and "Big Momma" Porter, who teaches piano and voice. Melody's older brother, Dwayne, wants to be a Motown singer; her oldest sister, Yvonne, is a student at Tuskegee University; her sister, Lila, is in middle school and lives at home. In her character's first book, No Ordinary Sound, Melody's cousins move to Detroit from Alabama; this is when Melody learns more of racial prejudice. When the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing occurs, Melody becomes fearful of going into her church, because the four little girls were in their church when they died. In time, Melody overcomes her fear. The first book was released in January 2016, although the doll wasn't released until summer 2016; a preview of the Melody doll was aired in CBS News in February 2016. The book's advisory board included: JoAnn Watson, NAACP executive committee member; Gloria House, professor of African American Studies at the University of Michigan, Dearborn; Thomas Sugrue, professor of history at New York University; and the late Julian Bond, former NAACP chairman. A live-action web special based on her stories entitled "Melody, 1963: Love Has to Win, an American Girl Story" was released by Amazon Studios, starring Marsai Martin as the title character.
American Girl is an American line of 18-inch (46 cm) dolls released on May 5, 1986, by Pleasant Company. The dolls portray eight- to fourteen-year-old boys and girls of a variety of ethnicities, faiths, and social classes from different time periods throughout history. They are sold with accompanying books told from the viewpoint of the girls. Originally the stories focused on various periods of American history, but were expanded to include characters and stories from contemporary life. Aside from the original American Girl dolls, buyers also have the option to purchase dolls that look like themselves. The options for the line of Truly Me dolls include eye color, face mold, skin color, hair texture, and hair length. A variety of related clothing and accessories is also available. A service for ordering a custom-made doll with features and clothing specified by the owner, dubbed Create Your Own, has also been introduced in 2017.
