Catch a tiger by the toe.

Racism, especially of whites toward blacks, was pretty common up to at least the mid 20th century. There was a publisher of children's books in the United States, Golden Books, which had some wonderful titles. Although mostly small, short books for children, we had a Golden Book that was a hefty tome on the formation of the solar system, of the earth, and the evolution of life on earth. Nothing political, no mention of religion--it was just a straight-forward description of earth science written for children. It really stood me in good stead when i was a child in school.

I also remember seeing a Golden Book on a rack at the local grocery store, Little Black Sambo. At the time i just found it odd--there were no black people in our town, so i had no notion that it was racist, or that there was such an issue as racism. No one thought anything about it. The store manager simply asked me if i were going to buy the book, or just "paw" it.

We had /have Little Golden Books here too. I may have even had the title you referred to. My experience was in the 70's.