Some have cheered the new dolls. Others jeered them, saying they're not black enough. "I love the black Barbie. It's about time," Jua Simpson said on CNN's iReport, a user-generated news community.

In 'Black Barbie,' designers Kitty Black Perkins and Stacey McBride-Irby talk the evolution of the dolls and further tell PEOPLE about the differences they've made Hedy Phillips is the Senior ...

As a result, Mattel hired her, and she became the first Black designer for Barbie in 1976. Before Kitty Perkins’ doll surfaced in stores, there was no other colored doll that depicted Black ...

The Black Doll Exhibition is presented by curator ... What initially started off as a fascination for Barbie/fashion dolls led Jacobs-Watson to study dolls more closely, in ways that most others ...

but this was the first time a Black doll had the word Barbie," she said of Mattel's dolls. The very first Black Barbie (middle) debuted in 1980, 21 years after Barbie debuted on March 9 ...