About ME

After nearly 20 years of celebrating everybody else’s dolls,  Mama Doll realized something:

The Black Doll Affair needed a Black doll of its own. In 2025, she told The Black Dolls that before our movement entered its 20th year, she would make sure they had their own  Black Doll Affair doll. 

There was just one little problem. I didn’t know what direction to take the doll.

Pictured Above: ME Doll Painted by: RiJana

Finding ME

At first,  she thought she would create a fashion doll. Then she thought about it. The fashion doll had already been done well. Hello, Mattel. Maybe Then she thought about making a cloth doll - something in the tradition of Raggedy Ann, Cabbage Patch Kids and the cloth dolls Black women have handmade for generations. That wasn’t her either. Christmas doll deliveries were fast approaching, and her self-imposed deadline was getting uncomfortably close, still she did not have the doll concept. So she said a little prayer: “God, make a doll with ME.” That night she was sleepless, while scrolling Instagram, she came across a Reel about Mitochondrial Eve.  I She Googled more... and more, and them some more. She kept reading to exhaustion before finally saying out loud: How does Mama Doll, founder of The Black Doll Affair, not know about Mitochondrial Eve? What day of school did I miss when they taught this lesson?

Mitochondrial Eve is the name scientists give to the woman in Africa to whom the mitochondrial lineages of everyone living today ultimately trace through an unbroken maternal line.

And suddenly I had one very important question: What is racism if we all come from an African Mother? That question changed the doll. And the doll changed the conversation.

Welcome to the ME Doll

My research led me deeper into the story of human origins, including Omo I and Omo II, ancient Homo sapiens skull remains (inspiration for the dollhead) discovered in Ethiopia. They are not the remains of Mitochondrial Eve, but learning about these ancient African humans helped shape how I imagined ME. I no longer wanted another full-bodied fashion doll. I wanted the head to be the canvas. The ME Doll became a sculptural art experience inspired by our shared human ancestry, a doll you can paint in your hue while learning about and celebrating our Mother.

 

Celebrate YOUR color. Discover OUR Mother.™ The ME Doll is a Human Family Heirloom and Educational Artifact created to start conversations about racial harmony, identity, ancestry and what it means to be human. Our colors, cultures and histories matter.

And so does the human family we share.

Make ME Your Own

Pictured above: Black Doll Michelle, winner of Best in Show for her ME Doll created at the May 2026 PaintME Party.

Make ME Your Own

There are several ways to experience ME.  Through the Mama ME-Ah!™ Collection, I create original ME Doll art in my studio, exploring race, humanity, history, identity and love.

Choose a Solo ME Doll Experience and paint your own interpretation of ME. Gather your family, social club, classroom, organization or company for a Group ME Doll Experience. Attend an official ME Doll Paint Party hosted by Mama Doll, or Hire Mama Doll to bring the conversation and creative experience to your gathering. However you meet ME, the invitation is the same: Paint your color. Learn our story. Start a conversation.

Where ME Goes From Here

My hope is bigger than a doll.

I hope our conversations about skin color continue to grow into a larger multicultural conversation about our shared humanity and African maternal ancestry.

Black history matters.

Every culture matters.

Our individual stories matter.

And so does the story that connects us.

The ME Doll gives us something tangible to place in the middle of that conversation.

Something to paint. Something to display. Something to bestow. Something that asks us to look at one another, and ourselves, differently

After nearly 20 years of giving away dolls, The Black Doll Affair finally has a doll of its own.

Meet ME.

Celebrate YOUR color. Discover OUR Mother.™