What color were the original Oompa-Loompas?

In the first edition of Roald Dahl’s classic 1964 children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the tireless, loyal Oompa-Loompas were black, not orange.

Dahl described them as a tribe of three thousand black pygmies imported by Mr. Wonka from “the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had ever been before.,” to replace the sacked white workers in his factory. They lived on chocolate, whereas before they had only eaten “beetles, eucalyptus leaves, caterpillars, and the bark of the bong-bong tree.”

Although it was well-received at the time, Dahl’s description of the Oopma-Loompas, with its overtones of slavery, veered dangerously close to racism, and by the early 1970’s hus US publishers, Knopf, insisted on changes. In 1972 a revised edition of the book appeared. Out went the black pygmies, and in came Oompa-Loompas looking like small hippies with “golden-brown hair” and “rosy white skin.”