Floyd Norman dreamed of working for Disney as a child. In an interview with Curiosity, he says, “When I was a kid, my dream was to work for Walt Disney. Maybe it was a crazy dream, but it was a dream nonetheless and I believed in it.”

Just 2 years after art school, Floyd Norman began working as an animator with Disney in 1956, in the process, becoming the first black animator in the company. However, Norman doesn’t see himself as a trailblazer. “I didn’t come in as a person of color, I came in as an artist", Norman says, "I didn’t come in to break down barriers, I came in to get a job. I was just another ambitious kid.”

Norman worked alongside Walt Disney himself on some famous Disney classics, including “Sleeping Beauty”, “Mary Poppins” and “Jungle Book”. The 81-year old Norman can still be seen on the Disney campus doing freelance work from time to time.

Read more from the interview with Floyd Norman here - http://www.eagleheadline.com/archives/11168

Yeah, salute to one of our kind.