Chronology

Murphy, John; James, Ashley

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Chronology

John Murphy (Compiler) and Ashley James (Compiler)

Charles White: A Retrospective

Chronology

Author

John Murphy (Compiler) and Ashley James (Compiler)

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-100015

Chronology

COMPILED BY JOHN MURPHY AND ASHLEY JAMES

1918

Apr. 2: Charles Wilbert White (CW) is born in Chicago, IL, to unmarried parents: Ethelene Gary, a domestic worker (see fig. 1), and Charles White Sr., a Pullman car porter of Native American (Creek) heritage. Ethelene had moved to Chicago from Mississippi as part of the Great Migration (1916–70), the movement of more than seven million African Americans from the South to the Northeast, Midwest, and West.

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Description: Ethelene Gary and baby Charlie by Unknown

Fig. 1. Ethelene Gary and baby Charlie. Charles White Archives, CA.

EARLY 1920S

Grows up on the South Side of Chicago at 210 E. 53rd Street (see fig. 2). CW’s mother, raising him alone, often leaves him at the main branch of the Chicago Public Library while she works. Inspired by commercial illustrators like Henry Raleigh, N. C. Wyeth, and Franklin Booth, CW demonstrates an early interest in drawing, encouraged by his teachers at Burke Elementary School.1White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 14, 1979, Charles White Archives, CA; and White, undated application (mid-1950s) for John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (hereafter Guggenheim Fellowship application), reel 3191, Charles W. White Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (hereafter CWP, AAA).

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Description: Charles White at the age of six by Unknown

Fig. 2. White at the age of six. Charles White Archives, CA.

1925

Alain Locke edits an anthology, The New Negro: An Interpretation, featuring writers and intellectuals associated with the Harlem Renaissance, a movement of black artists and writers in New York promoting racial consciousness. The anthology, including portraits by German-born artist Winold Reiss of figures like W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson, would profoundly influence CW.2White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 20, 1979; White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 33; and F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 30–31.

1926

Feb.: Carter G. Woodson, historian and founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915, initiates Negro History Week, between the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. CW later participates in several group exhibitions and one-man shows to celebrate Negro History Week.

1927

Mar.: Charles White Sr. dies of pneumonia at age 43. Ethelene Gary marries Clifton Marsh, a stockyard worker and post office employee. (They separate when CW is 13.) CW begins traveling to Ridgeland, MS, twice a year to visit his mother’s relatives, and feels especially inspired by the endurance of his great-aunts.3White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 17, 1979; and F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 159–60.

1931

Receives a scholarship through the James Nelson Raymond Lecture Fund to attend Saturday classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. He receives instruction from Dudley Crafts Watson, hears lectures by painters like Ivan Albright, and spends time in the museum’s galleries admiring works by the painters El Greco and Winslow Homer and the sculptor George Grey Barnard. He attends the Saturday classes until his junior year of high school.4White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 17 and 20, 1979; and “The James Nelson Raymond Lecture Fund for Children of Members and Public Schools,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 28, no. 6.2 (Nov. 1934): 85–89.

1932

Attends the predominantly white Englewood High School.5White recalled about a quarter of the students at Englewood were black; all the teachers were white. White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 34–35; see also White, Guggenheim Fellowship application (n. 1 above). Among the other black students are future artist and writer Margaret Burroughs and artist Eldzier Cortor. Works odd jobs from ages 14 to 18 as a hotel bellhop and a counter attendant in an ice cream shop. Begins painting signs and lettering posters for local businesses (such as Bronzeville’s Regal Theater), but the local union creates difficulties for him to pursue this line of work independently.6White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 34. White never specified which union “stymied” his trade or what exactly they did, but it was likely the Sign, Scene and Pictorial Painters Union, which had its headquarters in Chicago. It had strict rules about issues such as apprentices, membership, and regulations and likely threatened the young White with legal action.

1933

Learns of the Art Crafts Guild, a gathering of black artists that meets every Sunday on the South Side, in the Chicago Defender. Burroughs, Cortor, Charles Davis, Bernard Goss, George Neal, and Charles Sebree are among attendees. CW begins exhibiting his work with the guild in churches, the YMCA and YWCA, and settlement houses. Members of the guild, along with writers like Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks, are part of the Black Chicago Renaissance—a cultural movement that encourages activism and support for African American art and literature during the 1930s and 1940s.7White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 37. The Defender article in question may have been “Art Crafts Guild” from the December 10, 1932, issue.

1934

June: Participates in the Open Air Art Fair in Chicago’s downtown Grant Park, where he meets Todros Geller, known as the dean of Jewish Chicago art. CW later takes Saturday lessons from Geller, who encourages him to work from live models rather than copy works by other artists.8White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 20 and 24, 1979.

1936

Wins scholarships to the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and the Frederic Mizen Academy of Art. According to CW, both schools retract their offer when administrators discover he is black.9White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 20, 1979; and White, Guggenheim Fellowship application (n. 1 above). See also Bernard Goss, “Art Chronicle: Ten Negro Artists on Chicago’s South Side,” Midwest—a Review (Dec. 1936): 17–19; and Willard F. Motley, “Negro Art in Chicago,” Opportunity 18, no. 1 (Jan. 1940): 19–22. According to F. B. White, White was offered the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts prize at age 16 and the Frederic Mizen Academy of Art scholarship a year later; see F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 32–33.

Feb.: The National Negro Congress (NNC), an organization formed to fight discrimination and promote the cause of black liberation, holds its first meeting in Chicago, drawing more than five thousand people.10Richard Wright, “Two Million Black Voices,” New Masses, Feb. 25, 1936, 15; and “Universal Unrest among Black People Revealed at National Negro Congress Here,” Chicago Defender, Feb. 22, 1936, 1. CW later works as staff artist and serves on the editorial board of the NNC official journal, Congress Vue (later Congress View).

May: CW is awarded first prize for composition and figure painting in the Chicago Negro Art Exhibition sponsored by the Art Crafts Guild and the WPA’s National Youth Administration.11“Young Negroes Exhibit Drawing and Painting” and “Art Crafts Guild Present Awards,” unidentified newspaper clippings, reel 3195, CWP, AAA.

Sept.: Wins fourth place in a nationwide sketching contest sponsored by the Eberhard Faber Company. Receives a five-dollar prize and an Eberhard Faber art set.12“Receives Five Dollars, Art Set as Fourth Prize in Sketching Contest,” unidentified clipping dated Thursday, Oct. 1, 1936, reel 3195, CWP, AAA.

Dec.: The Chicago chapter of the Artists Union sponsors a sit-down strike at the administrative offices of the Illinois Art Project (IAP), located in the Merchandise Mart. The protest is over layoffs, lower quotas, and discriminatory hiring practices. “My first lesson on the project,” CW recalled, “dealt not so much with paint as with the role of the unions in fighting for the rights of working people.”13White was a member of this union, but it is not known when he joined. White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 38; and “34 Strikers ‘Sit Down’ in Main Office of WPA: Protest Dismissals and Plan to Fire More,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Dec. 13, 1936.

Garners first significant press attention with mention in regional periodical Midwest—a Review.14Goss, “Art Chronicle: Ten Negro Artists on Chicago’s South Side,” 17–19.

1937

Apr.: Wins second place and a cash award in pencil sketching at the Carnegie Institute’s national scholastic award program. Also receives a cash award in the George Bellows Memorial Award competition.15“Englewood Students Win Honors, Cash in Scholastic Contest,” Chicago Defender, Apr. 1937, clipping, reel 3195, CWP, AAA.

May: Awarded a scholarship by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in the amount of $240, which covers tuition for one year of full-time study.16Associate Dean Norman Price to White, May 17, 1937, reel 3195, CWP, AAA.

Summer: Graduates from Englewood High School. Works at the Abraham Lincoln Center’s summer camp in Milton Junction, WI.17The Chicago-based Abraham Lincoln Center was founded in 1905 to serve a largely African American population and to promote socialist politics. White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 20, 1979. White’s two summers at the Wisconsin camp are mentioned in “Howard Art Gallery Exhibits Works of Nationally Known Young Artists,” Chicago Defender, Apr. 29, 1939, 5.

Sept.: Begins taking courses at SAIC in art history, drawing and composition, design and lettering, and figure drawing. Earns honorable mention in life drawing course. Supports himself during the school year by teaching part-time at Saint Elizabeth Catholic High School in Bronzeville and working as a cook and valet to artist Antonio Beneduce.18Transcript, Department of Registration Records, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and White, oral history interview by Hoag.

1938

Feb.: Participates in An Exhibition in Defense of Peace and Democracy, an interracial show sponsored by the Chicago Artists’ Group to generate funds for victims of fascism in Spain and China.19White, oral history interview by Fortess.

Apr. 1: Attends a poetry reading and lecture by Langston Hughes at the Book Review and Lecture Forum, sponsored by the George Cleveland Hall Branch of the Chicago Public Library (see “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: Charles White's Murals as History of Art,” fig. 2). The Hall Branch had opened in 1932 under the leadership of Vivian G. Harsh, the first African American branch head in the Chicago Public Library system. In addition to organizing the forum, Harsh begins to amass a “Special Negro Collection” dedicated to African American history and literature.20Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection, Woodson Regional Library, Chicago Public Library (hereafter CPL); and “Miss Vivian Harsh Gets Library Post,” Chicago Defender, July 11, 1931, 4.

Summer: Returns to work at the Abraham Lincoln Center summer camp.

Sept.: Hired for the easel division of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Illinois Art Project (IAP). The WPA IAP, a New Deal initiative to provide relief for struggling and unemployed artists, supports visual artists in the United States between 1935 and 1943. “Looking back at my three years on the project,” CW later recalls, “the most wonderful thing for me was the feeling of cooperation with other artists, of mutual help instead of competitiveness, and of cooperation between the artist and the people.”21White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 38–39; and civilian personnel record for Charles W. White, Works Progress Administration, National Personnel Records Center, National Archives and Records Administration at Saint Louis.

Nov.: The newly formed Negro People’s Theatre in Chicago performs Langston Hughes’s play Don’t You Want to Be Free? at the Abraham Lincoln Center. Hughes is present at the premiere.

The play and the presence in Chicago of playwright Theodore Ward inspire CW to become involved in acting and to design sets for the Negro People’s Theatre.22“Chicago Will See Hughes’ New Play,” Chicago Defender, Nov. 5, 1938, 5; and White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 24, 1979.

1939

Apr.: CW’s work is included in an exhibition at Howard University, Washington, DC, of art by African American artists employed by the WPA Federal Art Project (FAP).23“Howard Art Gallery Exhibits Works of Nationally Known Young Artists,” Chicago Defender, Apr. 29, 1939, 5.

May: Serves as chairman of the artists’ committee during the planning for the South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC) in Bronzeville. Proposes an exhibition and auction to raise funds for the nascent center, which will also receive funding from the WPA.24Sponsors committee meeting notes, May 15, 1939, SCCAC Archives.

Sept.: Transfers from the easel division to the mural division of the WPA IAP. Likely works as assistant to Arthur Lidov on the mural cycle for Walter S. Christopher School in Gage Park on Chicago’s Southwest Side. CW recalls: “I learned a great deal . . . all about how to square the canvas, how to enlarge, how to rough it in, all these things, make all your preliminaries, do the research.”25White, oral history interview by Hoag.

Oct.: The Art Crafts Guild opens a permanent art gallery in the Black Spider’s Club, 3826 S. Michigan Avenue. It is the only black-owned and black operated art gallery in Illinois.26“Open Art Gallery,” Chicago Defender, Oct. 28, 1939, 15.

Oct. 23: Five Great American Negroes (pl. 7) is displayed at the first annual Artists and Models Ball, a fund-raiser for the SSCAC, held at the Savoy Ballroom, 4733 South Parkway (Grand Boulevard, now S. Martin Luther King Drive).

A poll in the Chicago Defender on the most influential figures in African American history determined the mural’s subjects.27“Artists and Models Ball Draws Capacity Crowd,” Chicago Defender, Oct. 28, 1939, 28; and “Washington Tops List of Race Leaders: Five Being Selected for Painting to Be Shown at Savoy Oct. 23,” Chicago Defender, Oct. 14, 1939, 23.

1940

Jan.: Receives national exposure through an article by Willard F. Motley in Opportunity.28Willard F. Motley, “Negro Art in Chicago,” Opportunity 18, no. 1 (Jan. 1940): 19–22, 28–31.

Jan.–June: Studies fresco painting at Hull-House Settlement with Edward Millman and privately with Briggs Dyer.29Charles White, Rosenwald Fellowship application, 1941, Charles W. White fellowship file, Julius Rosenwald Fund Archives, box 456, file 6, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library, Special Collections and Archives, University, Nashville (hereafter Rosenwald Archives).

Mar.: Richard Wright’s novel Native Son is published. CW later executes a series of drawings based on the book, including Native Son No. 2 (pl. 12).

Gives lecture, “The Negro in Art,” with Bernard Goss at an SSCAC meeting. The Chicago Defender reports: “White and Goss are confident that the Negro’s future in art is a bright one if he can continue to receive the encouragement and interest that he is receiving now.”30“Art and the People,” Chicago Defender, Mar. 16, 1940, 3.

Apr. 18: Hired by the Associated Negro Press (ANP) to produce a 9 × 20 ft. mural for the American Negro Exposition. Completes the mural, The History of the Negro Press (see “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: Charles White's Murals as History of Art,” fig. 6), on June 28.31White to Claude Barnett, July 23, 1940, Claude Barnett Papers, Chicago History Museum; “Shows History of Negro Press,” Chicago Bee, July 27, 1940, reel 3195, CWP, AAA; and “Exposition Mural Depicts History of Negro Press,” Chicago Defender, Aug. 10, 1940, 5.

July 4: The American Negro Exposition opens at the Chicago Coliseum on the Near South Side. Sponsored by the State of Illinois, the exposition celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Thirteenth Amendment. The exposition includes an art show, Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro, 1851 to 1940, organized by Alain Locke, professor of philosophy at Howard University, and Alonzo Aden, curator of the Howard University Gallery of Art. CW’s drawing There Were No Crops This Year (pl. 9) is awarded first place in the black-and-white category; his watercolor, Fellow Workers, Won’t You March with Us? (1940; location unknown) receives an honorable mention.32American Negro Exposition, 1863–1940: Official Program and Guide Book (Chicago: Exposition Authority, 1940); and Alain Locke, “The American Negro Exposition’s Showing of the Works of Negro Artists,” in American Negro Exposition, Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro (1851 to 1940) (Chicago: American Negro Exposition, 1940).

Aug. 6: After spending several months executing The History of the Negro Press for the ANP, CW is reinstated on the WPA IAP.33Civilian personnel record for Charles W. White, WPA (n. 21 above).

1941

Mar.–Aug.: Studies privately with painter Edgar Britton, a muralist and technical director of the IAP.34White, Rosenwald Fellowship application (n. 28 above).

May 7: First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt formally dedicates the SSCAC. It is one of the more than 100 community centers established by the WPA FAP and the first center to showcase art by African Americans. CW exhibits and teaches life drawing classes there (see fig. 3).35Diana Briggs, “First Lady Spends Busy Three Hours in Chicago,” Chicago Defender, May 17, 1941, 13; Alain Locke, “Chicago’s New Southside Art Center,” Magazine of Art 34, no. 7 (Aug.–Sept. 1941): 370–74; and Peter Pollack Papers, Scrapbook, 1939–1943, AAA.

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Description: Charles White teaching life drawing class at the South Side Community Art Center by...

Fig. 3. White teaching life drawing class at the South Side Community Art Center, c. 1940–41. Charles White Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Summer: Meets Elizabeth Catlett, chair of the art department at Dillard University in New Orleans. She has an MFA from the University of Iowa, where she studied with Regionalist painter Grant Wood. She spends the summer in Chicago with roommate Margaret Burroughs, studying ceramics at SAIC and lithography at SSCAC.36White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 24, 1979; and Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett, 36.

Fall: Works on a mural commission for the George Cleveland Hall Branch Library. The mural is never completed.37For more on White’s mural commission, see the correspondence between Vivian Harsh and Carl Roden, Carl Roden Collection, Harold Washington Library Center, Special Collections, CPL.

Dec.: Marries Catlett, and they honeymoon in New York. Participates in Downtown Gallery’s groundbreaking exhibition, American Negro Art: 19th and 20th Centuries, in New York. Fellow exhibitors include Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Catlett, Palmer Hayden, and William H. Johnson.

1942

Jan.–June: Teaches art at Dillard University.

Mar.: CW’s employment on the WPA IAP is terminated. In December, President Roosevelt disbands the WPA, and most operations end by February 1943.38Civilian personnel record for Charles W. White, WPA (n. 21 above).

Apr.: Receives a grant of $2,000 from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, which began offering fellowships to African American artists, writers, scholars, and intellectuals in 1928.39Director for fellowships William C. Haygood, award letter to White, Apr. 18, 1942, reel 3195, CWP, AAA. Exhibits in Atlanta University’s First Annual Exhibition of Paintings by Negro Artists of America. Initiated by art director Hale Woodruff, the exhibition would recur for nearly thirty years, promoting the work of artists such as Bearden, John Biggers, Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, and Lois Mailou Jones.

June: The draft board denies CW’s request to travel to Mexico. Unable to study fresco painting in Mexico, he moves instead to New York with Catlett to conduct research at the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature, History and Prints (now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture) and study at the Art Students League with Harry Sternberg. CW and Catlett join a community of artists, activists, and intellectuals that includes Gwendolyn Bennett, Duke Ellington, Ralph Ellison, and Hughes.40See correspondence between William C. Haygood and White, White, Rosenwald Fellowship file (n. 28 above); and Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett, 29–30.

Summer: CW and Catlett work as arts coordinators at the interracial and coeducational Workers Children’s Camp (Wo-Chi-Ca) established in Hunterdon County, NJ, in 1934 by the International Workers Order (IWO). There, CW meets camp counselor Frances Barrett (see under Jan. 1948).41Levine and Gordon, Tales of Wo-Chi-Ca; and Samantha White, “Race, Class, Space, and Memory at Wo-Chi-Ca: A Look at Radical Leftist Summer Camping,” Child and Youth Services 36, no. 1 (2015): 5–15.

Fall: CW and Catlett are profiled in the New York Amsterdam Star–News (Sept. 5) (fig. 4).42“Meet Mr., Mrs. Charles White: An Interesting and Talented Combination,” New York Amsterdam Star–News, Sept. 5, 1942, 15. They travel through Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, and Georgia. CW calls his time in the South “one of the deeply shaking and educative experiences of my life.” He develops an appreciation for southern black culture, especially “the spirituals, blues, ballads, work songs, gospel songs, church songs and secular songs,” which he called “one of the most important influences on my work.” He also encounters violent prejudice: he is beaten in New Orleans for entering a segregated restaurant and is threatened at gunpoint by a streetcar conductor in Hampton, VA.43White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 39.

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Description: Meet Mr., Mrs. Charles White: An Interesting and Talented Combination by Chase,...

Fig. 4. “Meet Mr., Mrs. Charles White: An Interesting and Talented Combination,” New York Amsterdam Star–News, Sept. 5, 1942, 15.

1943

Jan.: CW begins work on The Contribution of the Negro to Democracy in America at the Hampton Institute in Hampton, VA (see fig. 5).

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Description: Charles White at work on Hampton Institute mural by Unknown

Fig. 5. White at work on Hampton Institute mural. People’s Voice, June 19, 1943. Reel 3194, Charles White Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Apr.: Awarded a $2,000 renewal grant by the Julius Rosenwald Fund to study at the Art Students League of New York and to paint a series on the role of African American soldiers during World War II.44White, “Report of a Year’s Progress and Plan of Work for a Renewal of a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship,” Rosenwald Archives (n. 28 above); and Mrs. William C. Haygood, acting director for fellowships, to White, Apr. 21, 1943, reel 3195, CWP, AAA. Serves on the jury of Atlanta University’s Second National Exhibition of Paintings by Negro Artists (see fig. 6).

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Description: Selection jury for the Second National Exhibition of Paintings by Negro Artists,...

Fig. 6. Selection jury for the Second National Exhibition of Paintings by Negro Artists, Atlanta University, Apr. 1943. Left to right: White; L. P. Skidmore, director of the High Museum of Art; Jean Charlot, painter (standing); Lamar Dodd, head of the Department of Art, Georgia University; Rufus E. Clement, president of Atlanta University; Hale Woodruff, professor of art, Atlanta University. Magazine of Art, May 1943, 190.

May: Five Great American Negroes is included in an exhibition at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, a major US Army training station with many all-black units, for an exhibition of works by black artists made under the auspices of the WPA FAP.

June 25: The Hampton mural is formally unveiled. CW participates in a panel discussion, “Art and Democracy,” with Dr. Viktor Lowenfeld (Hampton Institute), James Herring (Howard University), Sternberg (Art Students League), and Woodruff (Atlanta University). The mural culminates his Rosenwald fellowship year and garners him national press attention.45Hampton Institute file, reel 3191, CWP, AAA; and “Art Today: Mural by a Talented Artist,” Daily Worker, Aug. 28, 1943, clipping, reel 3195, CWP, AAA.

Summer: Petitions to have his status in the Selective Service reclassified from 1A to 2B, which would have allowed him to continue to paint as part of the war effort, but is denied. Returns to New York with Catlett.46See 1943 correspondence between Mrs. William C. Haygood, acting director of fellowships, Julius Rosenwald Foundation, and White, in White, Rosenwald Fellowship file (n. 28 above).

1944

Jan.–Mar.: CW and Catlett teach art classes at the George Washington Carver School (57 W. 125th Street), which was founded in late 1943 for poor and working people in Harlem (see fig. 7). Under the direction of Gwendolyn Bennett, a prominent writer and painter active in the Harlem Renaissance, the school attracts the support of notable radicals, artists, and progressives.47Herzog, “Art for the People: The George Washington Carver School,” in Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett, 36–40; and Ramona Lowe, “Harlem’s Carver School Draws Capacity Classrooms,” Chicago Defender, Feb. 5, 1944, 18.

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Description: Harlem's Carver School Draws Capacity Classrooms by Lowe, Ramona

Fig. 7. Ramona Lowe, “Harlem’s Carver School Draws Capacity Classrooms,” Chicago Defender, Feb. 5, 1944, 18.

Apr.–Oct.: Inducted into the US Army. Completes basic training at Camp Ellis, IL, and is assigned to a camouflage unit at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. Serves as corporal in the all-black 1332nd Engineering Regiment for eight months; his division sandbags the flooding Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Falls ill and spends six months convalescing in a Veterans Administration hospital in Castle Point, NY. Diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis and receives a certificate of disability discharge.48US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Washington, DC, file, synopsis, memorandum, Mar. 9, 1953; and White, Guggenheim Fellowship application (n. 1 above).

1945

Jan.: Receives the annual IWO Cultural Award for contributions to American culture in the field of art.49FBI file, synopsis, Mar. 9, 1953, subheading Miscellaneous, 12–13.

Jan.–Feb.: Participates in the exhibition The Negro Artist Comes of Age at the Albany Institute of History and Art alongside Bearden, Catlett, Aaron Douglas, Lawrence, Norman Lewis, and Woodruff.

Feb.–June: Serves as artist in residence at Howard University.50White, Guggenheim Fellowship application (n. 1 above).

Apr. 25: Catlett is awarded a Rosenwald fellowship to produce The Negro Woman, a series on the role of African American women in the struggle for civil rights.

Summer: CW and Catlett oversee art program at Wo-Chi-Ca.

Fall: Publishes political cartoons as staff artist for Congress Vue on themes such as the Jim Crow South, the anti–poll tax bill, the need for progressive unity, and the mistreatment of African American veterans.51See subject file, Congress Vue, reel 3191, CWP, AAA.

1946

Feb.: Illustrates cover for Daily Worker pamphlet Dixie Comes to New York, which protests the murder of two black servicemen by a white Long Island police officer. In May CW provides an illustration (pl. 28) for the New Masses article “Can a Negro Study Law in Texas?” The article is a response to black student Heman Sweatt being denied admission to the University of Texas School of Law based on race. Sweatt’s case against the university would ultimately be decided in the Supreme Court (Sweatt v. Painter).52Harry Raymond, Dixie Comes to New York: Story of the Freeport GI Slayings (New York: Daily Worker, 1946); and Lisa Call, “Can a Negro Study Law in Texas?” New Masses, May 7, 1946: 3–5. For the next several years CW contributes topical and provocative political cartoons to leftist publications including Daily Worker, Freedom, New Masses, and Masses and Mainstream.53For example, in February 1950 the Marxist monthly Masses and Mainstream (vol. 3, no. 2) published Toward Liberation (or Open Gate [1949; private collection]), The Ingram Case (see “Charles White: Feminist at Midcentury,” fig. 7), Trenton Six (pl. 29), and Frederick Douglass Lives Again (The Ghost of Frederick Douglass) [pl. 30]) in a special section, “Lift Every Voice.” Frederick Douglass Lives Again was also illustrated; Daily Worker, Feb. 12, 1950. The Ingram Case (1949) and Five Years Is Too Long! (c. 1950; location unknown) were reproduced in Paul Robeson’s periodical Freedom and on a cover of Sing Out! (vol. 2, no. 5 [May, 1952]; and vol. 3, no. 6 [Feb. 1953], respectively). Trenton Six was reproduced in the September 11, 1949, issue of The Worker and the March 1950 issue (vol. 1) of Challenge.

Rejoins faculty of the George Washington Carver School as an instructor.

Apr.: Joins the United Negro and Allied Veterans of America (UNAVA), a Chicago organization that supports veterans facing housing and job discrimination.54FBI file, synopsis, Mar. 9, 1953, subsection United Negro and Allied Veterans of America, 9.

Receives the $300 Edward E. Alford Award for Two Alone (pl. 25) at Atlanta University’s Fifth Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture and Prints by Negro Artists and the $25 First Atlanta University Purchase Award for the lithograph Hope for the Future (pl. 24).

Catlett’s Rosenwald fellowship is renewed. She and CW travel to Mexico City to work at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura y Escultura (National Academy of Painting and Sculpture) “La Esmeralda” and the famed graphic arts collective Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP). “Mexico was a milestone,” CW later recalls. “I saw artists working to create an art about and for the people. That had the strongest influence on my whole approach.”55Quoted in John Pittman, “He Was an Implacable Critic of His Own Creations,” Freedomways 20, no. 3 (1980): 191; see also Alison Cameron, “Buenos Vecinos: African-American Printmaking and the Taller de Gráfica Popular,” Print Quarterly 16, no. 4 (Dec. 1999): 353–67.

1947

Feb.: CW and Catlett return to New York to finalize divorce proceedings.56Catlett remained in Mexico. There she married fellow TGP member Francisco Mora and eventually became a Mexican citizen in 1962. Margaret Burroughs, “A Woman’s Viewpoint: Negro Artists Active in Mexico,” Philadelphia Tribune, Sept. 18, 1951, 6.

Mar.: The interracial group Committee for the Negro in the Arts (CNA) is founded in New York to challenge racial segregation and foster African American talent in all cultural media. Sponsors include CW, Harry Belafonte, Du Bois, Hughes, and Locke. CW actively fundraises for the CNA and helps establish a scholarship fund for young artists.57The CNA sponsored White’s 1950 solo show at the American Contemporary Art Gallery and hosted a reception in his honor on opening night (see “Charles White: Feminist at Midcentury,” fig. 6). F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 55–58; and CNA press release and reception invitation promoting White’s 1950 ACA Gallery Show, reel 3195, CWP, AAA.

Apr. 14: Is the target of a “hoodlum assault” in Greenwich Village. The Civil Rights Congress protests lack of police response.58Daily Worker, Apr. 14, 12, cited in FBI file, supplemental correlation summary, Jan. 21, 1958.

May 29: IBM purchases Hope Imprisoned (1946; location unknown) for $450.

July 22: Rockwell Kent, artist and president of the IWO, visits Wo-Chi-Ca, where CW and Ernest Crichlow serve as art counselors for the summer. CW works on a mural (now lost) for the camp’s Paul Robeson Recreation Hall (see fig. 8).59Wo-Chi-Ca brochure, “Building for the Future,” c. 1947, in printed material and lecture announcements, reel 3194, CWP AAA.

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Description: Rockwell Kent and Ernest Crichlow at Wo-Chi-Ca by Unknown

Fig. 8. Artist and activist Rockwell Kent visits Wo-Chi-Ca on July 22, 1947. Artist and art counselor Ernest Crichlow can be seen on the far right. White’s mural, intended for the camp’s Paul Robeson Recreation Hall, is visible in the background. Charles White Archives, CA.

Sept.: The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) subpoenas members of the entertainment industry for alleged ties to Communism. Known as the Hollywood Ten, they are charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate. This includes novelist and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who would later become friends with CW.60Dalton Trumbo file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA.

Sept. 9: First major solo exhibition opens at the American Contemporary Art (ACA) Gallery in New York (the first of seven during CW’s lifetime). Founded in 1932, the gallery promotes the work of American social realists and artist-activists such as Philip Evergood, William Gropper, Kent, and Alice Neel.

1948

Anton Refregier includes CW in his textbook Natural Figure Drawing.

Jan. 23: Undergoes several operations at Saint Anthony’s Hospital in Queens to treat his tuberculosis, after which he is forced to convalesce for nearly a year and a half. Although this disease is highly contagious, Frances Barrett, a white social worker whom he had met at Wo-Chi-Ca, visits him in the hospital, kindling a romance.61F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 13–14.

Invited to contribute to Yes, the People, the first portfolio published by the Workshop for Graphic Art in New York, a progressive interracial collective of artists modeled after the TGP.62Workshop for Graphic Art, Yes, the People (New York: Workshop for Graphic Art, 1948); Angelica Kaufman, “The Graphic Workshop and Its First Portfolio,” Daily Worker, Dec. 20, 1948, 12; and Workshop for Graphic Art, Negro USA (New York: Workshop for Graphic Art, 1949). The 1949 portfolio Negro USA featured a lithograph by White on its cover.

1949

Apr.: Lithograph Youth (1946) wins a Purchase Award at the Eighth Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture and Prints by Negro Artists sponsored by Atlanta University.

May 14: Is discharged from the hospital.

1950

Apr.: Burroughs hosts a party in Chicago in CW’s honor, where he is reunited with Barrett, who travels from Detroit to attend.63F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 16–18.

May 31: After a brief courtship, marries Barrett. The couple struggles to rent an apartment in New York and turns to Eastside Fair Housing Council, a program that assists interracial couples with legal aid in combatting discriminatory housing practices. They eventually find a one-bedroom apartment at 24th Street and Second Avenue. Later, they secure a more permanent residence at 710 Riverside Drive.64Ibid., 47–49. Addresses of White’s known residences are listed in a memorandum in his FBI file dated March 9, 1950.

June: The Korean War (1950–53) begins.

Begins working as an instructor at the Workshop School of Advertising and Editorial Art, where he holds a position until 1952.65Workshop School of Advertising and Editorial Art file, reel 3194, CWP, AAA.

July: The Library of Congress purchases the lithograph John Brown (pl. 32) as part of a program “to acquire prints of particular significance.”66Paul Vanderbilt, Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, to White, July 18, 1950, reel 3192, CWP, AAA. Is one of 100 black civic leaders to sign a statement against the Korean War sponsored by the Council on African Affairs.67“100 Leaders Hit Intervention in Korea as War for Slavery,” Daily Worker, July 24, 1950.

Fall: Joins art faculty at the Jefferson School of Social Science (JSSS) at 575 6th Avenue in New York as regular instructor of painting and drawing. Colleagues there include art and music critic Sidney Finkelstein and historian Herbert Aptheker. Launched in 1944 by the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) as a successor to the New York Workers School, the JSSS engages in community outreach to instruct the working class about Marxism.68FBI file, correlation summary, Dec. 7, 1956.

Sept.: Attends Artists Equity Association conference, “The Artist and the Museum,” in Woodstock, NY. When the Whites arrive, their hosts refuse to have an interracial couple in their home. CW delivers a talk about his experience at the Delgado Museum in New Orleans, where he had been denied admission on the basis of race, even though his work was on display there. The Artists Equity Association subsequently makes a policy recommendation to abolish segregation in all museums.69F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 52–53; The Artist and the Museum: The Report of the Third Woodstock Art Conference Sponsored by Artists Equity Association and the Woodstock Artists Association (New York: American Artists Group, 1950); and “Museums Talk with Artists on Joint Problems: Woodstock Conference Sets Up Groundwork for New System of Co-operation,” New York Herald Tribune, Dec. 30, 1951, 17.

1951

Feb.: CNA-sponsored solo exhibition Negro Woman opens at New York’s ACA Gallery, garnering critical attention (see fig. 9).70John Pittman, “Charles White’s Exciting ‘Negro Woman’ Show at ACA,” Daily Worker, Feb. 26, 1951. CW becomes a contributing editor to Masses and Mainstream; his linocut Man and Woman (1951) appears on the cover of the Negro History Week special issue.

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Description: Robert Gwathmey, Charles White, and Jacob Lawrence at Negro Woman exhibition, ACA...

Fig. 9. Left to right, Robert Gwathmey, White, and Jacob Lawrence at Negro Woman exhibition, ACA Gallery, Feb. 1951. Chicago Defender, Feb. 24, 1951, 14.

Apr.: Lithograph John Brown awarded the First Atlanta University Purchase Award in the Graphic Arts at Atlanta University’s 10th Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture and Prints by Negro Artists.

May: Contributes pen-and-ink drawing We March for Peace (1951; location unknown) to Howard Fast’s May Day, 1951 pamphlet published by the United Labor and People’s Committee for May Day. Other contributors to the pamphlet include Evergood, Hugo Gellert, Gropper, and Kent.71Howard Fast, We March for Peace—May Day 1951 (New York: United Labor and People’s Committee for May Day, 1951).

Aug.: Travels to France, England, and Italy. Then visits East Germany as head of a US delegation to the Third World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace in Berlin. After, visits Czechoslovakia and Poland.72Third World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA.

Sept. 15: Arrives in Soviet Union (see fig. 10). During his three-week stay, visits the Bolshoi Theater, the Lenin Library, Moscow University, and the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and travels to the Republic of Georgia to see the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. Upon his return home, participates in the drafting of “We Will Not Be a Silent Generation,” a press release that protests anti-Communism in the United States.73Diaries—trip to USSR, 1950 [sic] file, reel 3099, CWP, AAA.

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Description: Representatives of the Soviet Youth Antifascist Committee welcome Charles White in...

Fig. 10. Representatives of the Soviet Youth Antifascist Committee welcome White in Moscow, 1951. Charles White Archives, CA.

Oct.: CW’s trip to the Soviet Union places him under a cloud of suspicion during the anti-Communist “witch-hunting” of the Second Red Scare (1947–56). The FBI opens an official file on him and monitors his whereabouts, associates, activities, and publications until 1965.

Nov. 4: Reports on his trip to Europe and the Soviet Union at “Rebirth of German Culture,” a program sponsored by German American, Inc.74German American, Inc., thank-you letter to White, Nov. 16, 1951, reel 3195, CWP, AAA.

Dec. 9: Masses and Mainstream sponsors reception in honor of CW at JSSS. CW gives a speech, “Art in the New Europe,” detailing his trip to the Soviet Union.75FBI file, correlation summary, Dec. 7, 1956.

1952

Feb.: Subpoenaed by the Senate Committee on Internal Security to testify before the HUAC; in March this request is indefinitely postponed. No explanation is given.76White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 26, 1979; FBI file subheading Miscellaneous, synopsis, Mar. 9, 1953, 14.

Feb. 3: The writing and publishing division of the socialist organization National Council of Arts, Sciences, and Professions (NCASP) holds a reception in honor of CW and Fast at the Fraternal Clubhouse, New York, to celebrate the publication of the latter’s novel Spartacus, for which CW contributes cover art (see “‘Graphic Interpreter of the Black People’: Charles White as Draftsman and Printmaker,” fig. 7).77Synopsis, Mar. 9, 1953, FBI file, subsection National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions.

Mar.: Sponsors a national veterans art show under the auspices of the American Veterans for Peace. Publishes article, “Until the Day I Die, My Life Is Dedicated to My People.” “I can’t be just an artist,” he writes. “I can’t just paint. I must develop my ability to speak and write, and all my faculties for the fight.”78White, “Until the Day I Die, My Life Is Dedicated to My People,” Freedom, Mar. 1952, clipping, reel 3193, CWP, AAA; and “Veteran’s Art Show Opens March 29,” Daily Worker, Feb. 5, 1952, 7.

May: The Whitney Museum of American Art acquires the drawing Preacher (pl. 44).

The National Institute of Arts and Letters awards White a $1,000 grant “in recognition of a gifted artist whose work in lithography expresses a warm feeling of humanity.”79Whitney Museum director Herman More to White, May 7, 1952, reel 3195, CWP, AAA; and Leon Kroll, chairman of Committee on Grants for Arts, National Institute of Arts and Letters, award letter to White, May 28, 1952, reel 3195.

Summer: The Whites vacation in White Lake Lodge in the Adirondacks in New York State. There, CW meets Susan and Dr. Edmund Gordon, an interracial couple. Edmund, a preeminent psychologist and scholar, would become a lifelong friend and collector of CW’s work.80F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 69–70; see also Edmund W. Gordon file, reel 3191, CWP, AAA. In the handwritten notes accompanying the subject file, Frances White described Gordon, along with Crichlow, Ivan Dixon, and Carlton Moss, as one of White’s closest friends.

Aug.: Publishes “Art and Reality in the USSR” in New World Review.81The article was reprinted in the November 7, 1952, issue of the Daily Worker.

Dec. 1: Serves as guard of honor at funeral for political cartoonist Robert Minor, a Communist Party member and longtime contributor to the socialist journals The Masses and New Masses.82“Robert Minor’s Fellow Workers Pay Tribute to a Fearless Fighter for Peace, Socialism,” Daily Worker, Dec. 2, 1952, 8.

Contracts tubercular infection that requires testicular surgery. As a result the Whites are unable to conceive.83F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 71.

1953

Jan.: Joins artists, actors, musicians, scientists, and writers urging clemency for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were sentenced to death for conspiring to commit espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union.84“Notables in Art Who Urge Clemency,” Daily Worker, Feb. 16, 1953.

Feb.: Sidney Finkelstein’s essay “Charles White’s Humanist Art” is published. He writes, “Charles White works with full confidence in the people and in a world of peace and human progress. It is this confidence that radiates from his work.”85Sidney Finkelstein, “Charles White’s Humanist Art,” Masses and Mainstream 6, no. 2 (Feb. 1953): 43–46.

Mar. 6: Speaks at NCASP-sponsored cultural freedom rally at Manhattan Towers. Describes culture as an important weapon in the African American struggle for freedom and decries the lack of representation of African Americans in popular culture and fine art.86“Fight Back Rally for Culture,” Daily Worker, Mar. 12, 1953.

Apr. 17: Speaks at Masses and Mainstream fifth-anniversary event, Salute to Writers and Artists, at Manhattan Plaza.87FBI file, memorandum, Sept. 9, 1953.

Apr. 27: To the Future is selected by popular ballot for purchase at Atlanta University’s 12th Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture and Prints by Negro Artists, and CW is awarded $100.

May: Masses and Mainstream publishes Charles White: Six Drawings (cat. 109), featuring lithographic reproductions of Abraham Lincoln (pl. 42), Harvest Talk (pl. 43), Hope (1952; private collection), Let’s Walk Together (1953; private collection), The Mother (1952; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden), and Ye Shall Inherit the Earth (pl. 48). In the introduction Kent calls the drawings “essentially a documentation of human dignity.”88White, Charles White: Six Drawings.

Aug.: Evergood’s essay “Charles White: Beauty and Strength,” a review of Charles White: Six Drawings, is published. He writes, “White is giving us a world which he wants to come—which he has faith will come. He sweeps aside the pernicious vapors of inequality, cruelty and death which do exist here and now.”89Philip Evergood, “Charles White: Beauty and Strength,” Masses and Mainstream 6, no. 8 (Aug. 1953): 36–39, quotation on 39, emphasis in the original.

Dec. 23: Speaks at third annual National Negro Labor Council convention held at the Pershing Hotel in Chicago; argues that artists should fight for the dignity of the working class and urges an alliance between black and white artists.90FBI file, memorandum, Apr. 12, 1955.

1954

Vanguard Records begins commissioning drawings from CW for the covers of folk, blues, and jazz albums, including its Jazz Showcase series produced by John Hammond and sponsored by the magazine DownBeat.91White’s contact at Vanguard was likely Sidney Finkelstein, who worked there in 1951–73, in addition to working as an art critic. Record album covers file, reel 3099, CWP, AAA. Finkelstein was also the author of the first monograph on White.

Jan. 30: Together with Evergood, participates in panel, “McCarthyism and the Artist,” at the fifth annual convention of the New York NCASP held at Steinway Hall (113 W. 57th Street).92FBI file, memorandum, July 7, 1955.

May: Joins Provisional Committee to Restore Paul Robeson’s Passport. Robeson’s passport was revoked in August 1950 due to his alleged involvement in a pro-Soviet conspiracy.

Reviews The Best Untold: A Book of Paintings by Edward Biberman, in which he claims, “Our primary task as artists is to meet the high standards of truth and beauty set by the people. We deal with ideas. Therefore, we share a great responsibility for influencing the advance of the people’s movement.”93White, “Humanist Art,” review of The Best Untold: A Book of Paintings by Edward Biberman, Masses and Mainstream 7, no. 5 (May 1954): 59–60. White later became friends with Biberman; see Ilene Susan Fort’s essay in this volume.

Oct. 27: Receives the Masses and Mainstream annual William Weiner Award for his contributions to the magazine, particularly the February 1954 cover featuring his drawing of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth (see fig. 11). When accepting the award, pays homage to his mother, who “has never been singled out for awards” but instead has “worked for some fifty years as a domestic worker” and “did not have the opportunity to develop her talents, to make her full potential contribution to society.”94White, “Statement,” Masses and Mainstream 7, no. 11 (Nov. 1954): 46–47.

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Description: General Moses and Sojourner by White, Charles

Fig. 11. White’s General Moses and Sojourner (see “Charles White: Feminist at Midcentury,” fig. 9), reproduced on the cover of the Negro History Week issue of Masses and Mainstream, Feb. 1954.

Dec. 11: Speaks at the Progressive Party Forum in Pennsylvania on the subject of African American artists fighting for peace and justice.95FBI file, memorandum, Apr. 28, 1953.

1955

The first monograph on CW, Charles White: Ein Künstler Amerikas by Sidney Finkelstein, is published in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

Jan.: Cochairs the Hugo Gellert Anniversary Committee, which plans a banquet in honor of Gellert’s career as a socially conscious political cartoonist, illustrator, and muralist.96Advertisement, Daily Worker, Jan. 9, 1955, 13.

Apr.: CW’s autobiographical account and artist’s statement, “Path of a Negro Artist,” appears in Masses and Mainstream. He writes that his “major concern” as an artist is “to get my work before common, ordinary people, for me to be accepted as a spokesman for my people, for my work to portray them better, and to be rich and meaningful to them.

A work of art was meant to belong to people, not to be a single person’s private possession. Art should take its place as one of the necessities of life, like food, clothing and shelter.”97White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 43–44.

Apr. 18: Selected as a John Hay Whitney Foundation Opportunity Fellow for 1955–56.

Sept.: Tuberculosis reoccurs; forced to rest and limit painting to two hours a day. Defers Whitney fellowship stipend until fall of 1956.98Correspondence between Charles F. Jones, acting program secretary for opportunity fellowships, John Hay Whitney Foundation, and White, reel 3194, CWP, AAA.

Dec. 1: In Montgomery, AL, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat, which leads to the Montgomery bus boycott. F. B. White recalls, “We [Frances and Charles] cheered the reports of the solidarity and determination of the black community of Montgomery when they boycotted city buses. I recalled Charlie’s words, ‘This is the signal to do battle. This is the way we will dismantle segregation.’”99F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 123.

1956

Spring: Spends two months bedridden after his remaining lung becomes infected with tuberculosis. His doctor encourages rest and a dry, warm climate.100Ibid., 81.

Summer: The Whites vacation at the country home of Sidney and Brunetta Bernstein in Connecticut. Other guests include Horace Cayton, coauthor of famed sociological history of Chicago Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City.101Bernstein later produced Jean Genet’s Blacks in New York; its playbill cover was illustrated by White. F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 86–88.

Oct.: The Whites relocate to 1765 Summit Avenue in Pasadena, CA.

They begin hosting friends including Ossie Davis, Ivan and Berlie Dixon, Miriam Makeba (pl. 57), and Sidney and Juanita Poitier.102Esther Jones, “Artist Charles White Settles in Pasadena,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Thursday, Nov. 8, 1956, clipping, reel 3195, CWP, AAA.

1957

F. B. White begins working at the Woodlawn Branch YWCA and is the only white person on staff; her job involves integrating its citywide services program. The Whites move to Altadena (936 Kent Street), a predominantly white community, which prompts a number of residents to move.103F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 102–4.

Hired to teach life-drawing classes for the Westside Jewish Community Center at Biberman’s recommendation. This marks the beginning of an ongoing relationship with Jewish organizations in the Los Angeles area.104In 1963 the Friends of Jewish Secular Education bestowed upon White the Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky Award, which honored “outstanding personalities who have made lasting contributions to Jewish secular culture.” See Westside Jewish Community Center file, reel 3194, CWP, AAA; and I. Goldberg, award letter to White, Dec. 12, 1963, reel 3189.

Aug. 10: Speaks on “Art Today” at a People’s World press committee fund-raising reception in his honor.105FBI file, memorandum, Feb. 24, 1958.

1958

Spring: The California State Association of Colored Women’s Clubs sponsors an exhibition of CW’s work at the Harris Hall Gallery, USC. This begins White’s longstanding participation in smaller, community-oriented exhibitions throughout Southern California.106White’s involvement included exhibiting works and jurying shows for the Pasadena Artist Associates, the Pasadena Festival of the Arts, the Avalon Community Arts Center, and the Federation of Women’s Clubs of the Verdugo District. He maintained a relationship with the YWCA and received the organization’s Artist of the Year award in 1961. Although White did not identify as religious, he engaged with a number of churches in this community capacity, including the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles. Invitation to YWCA–Woodlawn Special Christmas Program, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

Mar.: During the filming of The Defiant Ones, the Poitiers regularly invite the Whites to dinner at their Altadena home. CW spends time on the set (see “Charles White: Feminist at Midcentury,” fig. 6).107F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 97–98.

Apr.: Listed in Ebony magazine as a leading young artist.108Other leading artists listed were Bearden, Cortor, Marion Perkins, and Sebree. “Leading Young Artists,” Ebony 13 (Apr. 1958): 33–38. CW’s appearances in Ebony and Negro Digest throughout the 1960s and 1970s generate considerable popular interest in the artist.

June: Commissioned by United Artists to provide end titles to Anna Lucasta, a film starring Sammy Davis Jr. and Eartha Kitt and based on the celebrated play by Philip Yordan. Creates a triptych of Eartha Kitt; Sammy Davis Jr.; and Rex Ingram, Frederick O’Neal, and Georgia Burke (pls. 73–75).109More industry commissions followed, and his work appeared in the movies Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) and For Love of Ivy (1968).

1959

CW’s drawings appear on Belafonte’s television program Tonight with Belafonte as intertitles between performances.110A lifelong friend of White’s, Belafonte was the subject of a number of portraits by the artist, including Folksinger (Voice of Jericho: Portrait of Harry Belafonte) (pl. 72) and J’Accuse #6 (pl. 81).

Nov.: Receives gold medal for Raise Every Voice (1959; Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig) at the Internationale Buchkunst-Ausstellung (International Exhibition of Book Arts) in Leipzig, East Germany.

1960

May: Solid as a Rock (pl. 76) receives First Purchase Award from Atlanta University’s 19th Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture and Prints by Negro Artists. Award is sponsored by popular local radio station WAOK-AM.

May 6: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960, designed to combat black disenfranchisement in the segregated South.

July 10: A large-scale reproduction of Man with Outstretched Arms (possibly O Freedom [1956; private collection]) is used as the backdrop for a NAACP rally in Los Angeles. Speakers and dignitaries attending the march include then senator John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins, and Democratic national chairman Paul Butler. The Whites help compile names and addresses of Negro community leaders for the cause—a task for which they receive personal thank-you letters from King and A. Philip Randolph, another leader of the civil rights movement.111A. Philip Randolph and Martin Luther King Jr. to Mr. and Mrs. White, June 9, 1960, reel 3192, CWP, AAA.

1961

Apr.: Mother Courage awarded first prize in the exhibition New Vistas in American Art at Howard University.

May 11: Judges the first annual Safety Savings and Loan Association High School Art Show.112White continued to serve as judge for the competition through 1966. He judged a host of other community competitions in the area, including the LA City School District’s Scholastic Art Exhibit (1965), Exhibit for the Handicapped, United Cerebral Palsy Association of Los Angeles County Art (1966), the Southern California Teachers Art Show (1966), the Sunday at the Bowl Festival of Art and Music (1966), the Leimert Park Festival of the Arts (1967), and the Peace Corps (1971). See correspondence with Safety Savings and Loan Association, reel 3189, CWP, AAA; see also Los Angeles City Unified School District file, reel 3192; and Pasadena Unified School District file, reel 3193.

Fall: Pro-Artist Publishers of Los Angeles releases 10 / Charles White, an affordably priced portfolio of ten offset lithographs with a foreword by Belafonte.

Nov. 5: Attends one-day exhibit of his recent prints and original work at Lincoln Avenue Methodist Church in Pasadena. Receives a scroll of commendation from the county supervisor for contributions to the arts.113Esther B. Jones, “Charles White Exhibit Enriching Experience,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Nov. 9, 1961, C1.

Nov. 25: Interviewed by Jack Daley of local radio station KPFK in segment titled “White’s Magnificent People.”114Elsa Knight Thompson, director of public affairs, KPFA, to White, Nov. 3, 1961, reel 3192, CWP, AAA.

1962

Jan.: Contributes illustrations to the book project Songs Belafonte Sings. (see fig. 12).

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Description: Charles White and Harry Belafonte working on Songs Belafonte Sings by Unknown

Fig. 12. White and Harry Belafonte working on Songs Belafonte Sings, a TV and book project. Charles White Archives, CA.

Aug.: Sponsors the Negro in the Creative Arts, a fund-raiser for candidate Thomas M. Rees in the race for New York State Senate.115Thomas M. Rees, thank-you letter to White, Sept. 8, 1962, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

Oct. 20: Receives an award for outstanding art achievement at the first Afro-American Business, Trade and Service Show of Greater Los Angeles.116Executive director Vantile E. Whitfield, award letter to White, July 23, 1962, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

1963

May 11: Introduces celebrated author James Baldwin as the main speaker at an event hosted by the Pasadena chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality.117Event program, reel 3194, CWP, AAA. At the time, Baldwin’s seminal collection of essays on American racism, The Fire Next Time, had just been published. White’s copy, with the inscription “for Brother Charles: Hold tight / Jim Baldwin,” remains in his library.

July: “Charles White, Artist” appears in Negro Digest (see fig. 13). The article begins, “The work of Charles White has such simple, direct—and profoundly poetic—power that it is astonishing he is not world famous. Well, perhaps not so astonishing after all: the artist is a Negro, characterized by great pride and integrity, and his subject matter is, almost invariably, his own race.”118Hoyt W. Fuller, “Charles White, Artist,” Negro Digest 12, no. 9 (July 1963): 40–45.

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Description: Charles White working on an NAACP recruitment poster by Unknown

Fig. 13. White working on an NAACP recruitment poster. From Hoyt W. Fuller, “Charles White, Artist,” Negro Digest, July 1963, 41.

Aug.: Trumbo sells the Whites an acre of hillside land in Altadena, where they start to build a home.119The house was completed by 1966; see F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 112–13.

Aug. 28: Martin Luther King Jr. delivers “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. CW’s lithographs I Had a Dream (1965) and I Have a Dream (1976) refer to this landmark event.

Sept. 15: In Birmingham, AL, four members of the Ku Klux Klan plant bombs in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a predominantly black congregation that is an important meeting place for civil rights leaders. The explosion occurs shortly before Sunday morning services, killing four young girls and wounding many others. The bombing inspires CW’s large-scale drawing Birmingham Totem (pl. 70).

Oct. 4: The Whites’ adopted daughter, Jessica Frances White (see fig. 14), is born. Five days later, she is welcomed into their home.

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Description: The White family—Charles, Ian, Frances, and Jessica—at their California...

Fig. 14. The White family—Charles, Ian, Frances, and Jessica—at their California home on Risinghill Road in Altadena, c. 1966. Charles White Archives, CA.

Nov. 22: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. F. B. White recalls that she and CW “had believed in him and in his ability to make a difference in our country and for our people.”120F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 123.

1964

Feb.: CW’s first solo Heritage Gallery show, Charles White, opens (the first of nine there during his lifetime).

1965

Begins teaching at Otis Art Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design).121White taught at Otis until his death in 1979. Over the course of his tenure, he taught and influenced a host of artists; Otis Art Institute file, reel 3189, CWP, AAA; and Esther Adler’s essay in this volume.

CW’s RCA Victor record cover of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing Morton Gould’s Spirituals for Orchestra and Aaron Copland’s Dance Symphony is nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Album Cover—Graphic Arts (see “Charles White, Artist and Teacher,” fig. 5).

Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, one of the largest black-owned businesses in the country, acquires General Moses (Harriet Tubman) (pl. 79).122Golden State’s collection of African American art included work by Charles Alston, Richmond Barthé, Betye Saar, and Hale Woodruff. White’s friendship with William Pajaud, a painter who worked in the publicity division, led to many collaborations with the insurance company, notably his inclusion in a complimentary calendar (for example, see “Charles White, Artist and Teacher,” fig. 4) that reproduced artwork by African American artists. See Golden State Mutual Life, reel 3192, CWP, AAA.

May 17–June 5: ACA Gallery mounts Charles White, its final solo show of CW’s artwork.

Aug.: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting. The same month, the Watts Rebellion breaks out in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles in response to allegations of police brutality toward an African American motorist. The National Guard is called in to quell the unrest.

Dec. 7: The Whites adopt three-month-old Charles Ian White (see fig. 14).

1966

Illustrates the cover of Philip Sterling and Rayford Logan’s Four Took Freedom: The Lives of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Robert Smalls and Blanche K. Bruce (see “Charles White, Artist and Teacher,” fig. 3).

Feb. 27: Speaks at opening night of Westside Jewish Community Center exhibition American Negro Artists.123“Charles White Will Speak at ‘American Negro Art Exhibit,’” Center News 16, no. 9 (Feb. 1966), copy, reel 3194, CWP, AAA.

Apr.: Birmingham Totem (pl. 70) is displayed in the First World Festival of Negro Arts held in Dakar, Senegal (see fig. 15), the first state-sponsored festival to promote African diasporic art, music, literature, film, theater, and dance to a global audience.

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Description: Chicago poet Margaret Danner, wearing a Senegalese boubou, looks at Charles...

Fig. 15. Chicago poet Margaret Danner, wearing a Senegalese boubou, looks at White’s Birmingham Totem at the US art exhibition in the Palace of Justice at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal. Negro Digest, June 1966, 91.

Aug.: CW’s drawing J’Accuse #10 (pl. 83) is reproduced on the cover of a special issue of Ebony titled “The Negro Woman.”

Oct.: The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense is founded in Oakland, CA, by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

Nov. 1: Tapes segment, “The Negro and the Arts,” for Speculation, a Community Television of Southern California program.124Executive producer of community television of Southern California Tom Burrows to White, Oct. 24, 1966, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

1967

Spring: Heritage Gallery publishes Images of Dignity: The Drawings of Charles White.

June: Work (Young Worker) (pl. 47) is reproduced on the cover of Negro Digest. The issue includes an article on Images of Dignity, in which the author states: “Charles White is to painting and drawing what Langston Hughes is to literature: both men direct their art to primal human concerns, to the simple problems and pleasures, the ordinary joys and sorrows of the long journey from the cradle to the grave.”125“The Drawings of Charles White: Images of Dignity,” Negro Digest 16, no. 8 (June 1967): 40–48, quotation on 40, 42 (picture on 41).

July: “Charles White: Portrayer of Black Dignity” is published in Ebony (fig. 16), which brings widespread public attention and acclaim. CW is quoted: “I have a total commitment to people, to art, and particularly my people. I take pride in the fact that being black gives me an identity and a source to draw upon. I’m never without something to say.”126Louie Robinson, “Charles White: Portrayer of Black Dignity,” Ebony 22, no. 9 (July 1967): 25–28, 30, 32, 34–36, quotation on 28, emphasis in the original.

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Description: Charles White: Portrayer of Black Dignity by Robinson, Louis

Fig. 16. Louie Robinson, “Charles White: Portrayer of Black Dignity,” Ebony, July 1967, 25.

1968

Jan.: Ink drawing Uhuru (1964; private collection) is reproduced on the cover of Melvin Drimmer’s Black History: A Reappraisal.

Apr. 4: Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, TN. CW contributes Seed of Love (pl. 84) to a memorial service sponsored by UCLA. In October, he donates Birmingham Totem (pl. 70) to an auction-exhibition at MoMA to benefit the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.127Program for memorial service, reel 3192, CWP, AAA; Pearl Bowser, co-coordinator of benefit exhibition In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to White, Oct. 23, 1968; and A Tribute to the Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. exhibition pamphlet, reel 3192, CWP, AAA.

June 5: Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated in Los Angeles. On June 21 the vice president of the Inner City Cultural Center thanks CW for donating his print Exodus II for its fund-raiser and apologizes that the “occasion for which you contributed your valuable work had to be cancelled due to the national tragedy.”128Mary Jane Hewitt, first vice president of Inner City Cultural Center, to White, June 21, 1968, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

Aug.: Contributes to exhibition Our Past, Our Present, Our Future . . . ? at the Countee Cullen Branch Library in Harlem. The exhibition is dedicated to the memories of Emmett Till and the four girls killed in the bombing of the Birmingham church.129“Art Notes,” Negro Digest 17, no. 10 (Aug. 1968): 68.

Oct. 26: Appears on Dialogues on Art, a weekly program hosted by Biberman airing on KNBC. Participates soon after in “Dialogues in Art,” a program moderated by Biberman and sponsored by the University of California Extension’s Department of Arts and Humanities.130University of California Extension file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA.

Dec. 6: “Giant of American Art Portrays: The Original Man,” appears in Muhammad Speaks, a widely read Nation of Islam newspaper. White is quoted: “I come to each picture with the sum total of my existence. I come to it with something of my heritage, something of the history I have inherited. . . . Art is this. It’s heart. It’s soul. It’s not talking about a theory, or an intellectual idea, I’m talking about a feeling.”131Dwight Casimere, “Charles White: Giant of American Art Portrays: The Original Man,” Muhammad Speaks, Dec. 6 and 20, 1968, copy, reel 3194, CWP, AAA.

1969

Mar. 27: Serves as a founding member of the Black Academy of Arts and Letters, established in Boston to “define, preserve, promote, cultivate, foster, and develop the arts and letters of black people.”132“The Black Academy of Arts and Letters,” Negro Digest 18, no. 7 (May 1969): 58, 89.

June 8: Participates in panel, Crisis: Black Art in White America, at the Van Nuys Branch Library in Los Angeles as part of the community discussion program Black Arts in White America.133Harold L. Hamill, city librarian, to White, Apr. 29, 1969, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

June 13: Columbia College in Chicago awards CW an honorary doctorate of arts.134F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 149–50.

July: Attends premiere of Gordon Parks’s The Learning Tree, the first Hollywood studio film directed by an African American.135Marx Bercutt and Warner Brothers— Seven Arts, telegram to White, July 5, 1969, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

Oct. 27: Delivers lecture, “Soul and Art,” as part of Black Arts Council lecture series at LACMA.136Black Arts Council file, reel 3192, CWP, AAA.

Nov. 3–4: Takes part in symposium on art, politics, and the environment at Southern Oregon College.137Southern Oregon College file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA.

1970

Receives a prestigious studio fellowship from the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, one of the leading printmaking workshops in the United States. There begins work on the Wanted Poster Series prints.138Tamarind Institute file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA.

Feb. 9–Mar. 10: Included in Five Famous Black Artists, an exhibition presented by the National Center of Afro-American Artists and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Feb. 24: Delivers lecture, “Is There a Black Esthetic?,” in Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute. The SSCAC hosts a reception in CW’s honor.139Doris E. Saunders, “S.S. Art Center Reception for Charles White,” Chicago Defender, Feb. 24, 1970, 18.

May: Whitney Museum of American Art acquires Wanted Poster Series #4 (see “Charles White's Art and Activism in Southern California,” fig. 8).140Assistant to the registrar Sybil Herschbein to White, May 12, 1970, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

June 25: Speaks at the University of California—Irvine Extension series program Conversations with Artists led by Biberman.141Program flyer, reel 3194, CWP, AAA.

Aug. 18: FBI director J. Edgar Hoover lists academic and activist Angela B. Davis on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted fugitive list. Supporters organize the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners and initiate a “Free Angela” campaign. CW allows his lithograph Love Letter I (pl. 101) to be reproduced on pre-addressed stationery for the group’s letter-writing campaign.

Oct.: Selected to appear in annual journal Outstanding Educators of America.142“Additional Art News,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 25, 1970, clipping, reel 3194, CWP, AAA.

1971

Jan.: National Academy of Design elects CW associate and one month later awards him the Adolph and Clara Obrig Prize for Wanted Poster Series #6 (pl. 88) in its 146th Annual Exhibition.

Jan. 26: Opening of LACMA exhibition Three Graphic Artists, which pairs works by CW with those of younger artists David Hammons and Timothy Washington.143The exhibition—the first African American art show at LACMA in thirty-five years—was the outcome of pressure applied by the Black Arts Council, an organization founded in 1968 to support black artists. Members believed that White should have been offered a solo show in a larger exhibition space. Black Arts Council file, reel 3192, CWP, AAA.

May: Delivers a lecture at the University of California, Riverside, on the Harlem Renaissance and another, “The Black Artist in America,” at LACMA, sponsored by the Graphic Arts Council. “My aim is to communicate the black experience in terms of the essential dignity of human beings,” CW says in the latter speech. “When I can do that successfully, I am reaching everyone, not just black people.”144Graphic Arts Council at LACMA file, reel 3191, CWP, AAA.

Aug. 11: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, founded in 1957 to promote civil rights through coordinated nonviolent direct action, gives CW a special award at its 14th annual convention in New Orleans. In his acceptance speech, CW says: “I sit and do a silly little thing like taking a brush, and I sit in a little cubicle that I call a studio—and I paint an image of man. Nothing I see, but something I feel . . . I try to find and search for answers to three questions: Who am I? What am I? Why?”145White, “I Paint My Folks,” Drum Major 1, no. 2 (Winter 1971): 19–20.

Sept. 9: Nearly half the prisoners at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, NY, stage a riot and gain control of the facility. After negotiations break down, Governor Nelson Rockefeller orders the New York state police to retake the facility, leading to the deaths of nine hostages and 29 inmates. CW later paints Homage to Attica (1972; private collection) to commemorate the event. In the fall of 1972, White begins talks to establish a “prison arts program” through the Cummins Engine Foundation and the Los Angeles Black Arts Council.146Claude Booker, Black Arts Council president, to White, Aug. 31, 1972, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

1972

Mar.: National Academy of Design awards CW the Isaac N. Maynard Prize for his painting Homage to Langston Hughes (1971; private collection) in its 147th Annual Exhibition.

May 26–28: Delivers keynote address at the National Conference to Assess the State of Black Art and Letters in Chicago.147The three-day conference, sponsored by the Black Academy of Arts and Letters and underwritten by the National Foundation for the Arts and the Johnson Publishing Company, featured nearly 200 black artists, actors, writers, and students, including author John O. Killens, actress Ruby Dee, and Ebony editor Lerone Bennett Jr.; “Black Arts Struggle for Freedom,” Jet, June 15, 1972, 42–44.

June 12 or 13: Records for the Scholastic Black Culture Program a narrated exploration of black art from ancient civilization to the present day, distributed by Scholastic Book Services.148Scholastic Book Services subject file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA.

Fall: Publishes “Desegregation and the Richmond Story” about efforts in Richmond, VA, to desegregate the school system.149Charles White, “Desegregation and the Richmond Story,” CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) 2, no. 3 (1972): 7.

1973

Feb. 16: The California Association of Teachers honors White at a luncheon in San Diego for African American, Mexican American, Asian American, and Native American authors, illustrators, and editors statewide.150Joanne Dale, chairman of Authors-Illustrators Recognition Luncheon, City of Los Angeles, Superintendent of Schools, to White, Nov. 22, 1972, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

Mar. 1: Appears on Black Omnibus, a talk show hosted by actor James Earl Jones featuring African American cultural figures.

Sept. 23: Interviewed by Harry Henderson, author of Six Black Masters of American Art.151Information from Henderson’s interview informed the section on White in his 1993 book coauthored with Romare Bearden, A History of African-American Artists: From 1792 to the Present (New York: Pantheon, 1993).

Nov.: Radio station WBOE-FM, owned and operated by the Cleveland Board of Education, airs a radio series, “Black Art in America,” that includes a two-part interview with CW.152Ronald Day, directing supervisor of art, Cleveland Public Schools, to White, Oct. 10, 1972, reel 3192, CWP, AAA.

1974

Mar.: The Whites travel to East Berlin for two weeks to attend an exhibition featuring CW, Refregier, and Tecla (Selnick).

Apr.: Lectures at the Talladega College arts festival, where his work is exhibited.

Aug. 13–14: Serves on a panel of judges—including musician and producer Quincy Jones and artist Betye Saar—at the Watts Summer Festival’s Black Art Awards.153Award ceremony invitation, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

Oct. 13: The Los Angeles Times publishes a feature on CW and his wife (fig. 17). CW is quoted: “I deal in black imagery, but I hope my pictures have universal characteristics. I bring a highly emotional point of view to my work. I’m not a reporter. Instead of trying to recreate an event, I put a reaction on paper.”154“Frances and Charles White: They Share a Life Where Art Is Served Up with Every Meal,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 13, 1974, Home Q&A, 74, emphasis in the original.

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Description: Frances and Charles White: They Share a Life Where Art Is Served Up with Every Meal...

Fig. 17. “Frances and Charles White: They Share a Life Where Art Is Served Up with Every Meal,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 13, 1974, Home Q&A, N72.

Oct. 24: Compton Community College offers a special tribute to CW and animator Bill Hanna for “outstanding contributions made throughout the world.”155Ulis Williams, director of community services, Compton Community College, to White, Oct. 17, 1974, reel 3191, CWP, AAA.

Dec. 2–5: Participates with Bearden and Crichlow in Kindred Spirits: African Artists in Diaspora, a Harvard University seminar sponsored by the Afro-American Studies Department organized in conjunction with an exhibition at Boston’s Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists.156Invitation from seminar organizer Edmund B. Gaither and detailed program for Kindred Spirits, reel 3192, CWP, AAA.

Dec. 11: Participates in A Great Day in December, a celebration of the first 500 days in office of the first black mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley.157Tom Bradley, mayor of Los Angeles, file, reel 3190, CWP, AAA.

1975

Elected to the National Academy of Design. CW is the third African American to become a full member, following Henry Ossawa Tanner and Hughie Lee-Smith. For membership, CW submits the painting Mother Courage II (1974; National Academy Museum, New York).

Feb.: Lerone Bennett Jr.’s The Shaping of Black America is published with a cover image and chapter opener illustrations by CW. The two are feted in Chicago at a reception at Johnson Publishing headquarters.158“Bennett and White Feted for Black History Book,” Jet, Mar. 6, 1975, 12–13.

Apr.: CW lectures at Spelman College on occasion of his one-man exhibition there.

Apr. 8: The Committee on Research and Status of Black Women, Southern California Women’s Missionary Society, AME Church, awards him charter participant status in advance of its first annual seminar, “The Black Woman: The Reality and the Myth.”159Ernestine Henning, chairwoman RSBWC, to White, Apr. 8, 1975, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

Summer: Judges the Bicentennial Black Achievement Exhibit.

Serves as honorary member of the steering committee for Amistad II, a major traveling exhibition and catalogue celebrating African American history on the occasion of the country’s bicentennial.160Coordinator Jimmy McDonal to White, June 5, 1975, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

Sept. 30: Invited to serve on the Studio Museum in Harlem’s inaugural national advisory council of “distinguished painters, sculptors, print makers, photographers, designers, educators, etc., to select exhibits for the Museum for the coming years.”161Richard V. Clarke, chairman of the board, Studio Museum in Harlem, to White, Sept. 30, 1975, reel 3189, CWP, AAA.

Nov.: Designs publicity images for Leadbelly, a feature film directed by friend Gordon Parks, based on the life of the legendary blues musician. Paramount Pictures rejects CW’s image, which is informed by research and period photographs, and opts instead for a more stereotypical portrayal of a musclebound, half-naked black man.162Leadbelly file, reel 3192, CWP, AAA.

1976

Feb.: Joins Artists for Economic Action, an organization dedicated to improving economic conditions for American artists.163Artists for Economic Action file, reel 3190, CWP, AAA.

Aug. 1: Guest of honor at Pasadena Arts Council Reception for Artists.164The Pasadena Arts Council made him a member in 1978. Pasadena Arts Council file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA.

Sept.: Major retrospective exhibition The Work of Charles White: An American Experience opens at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and travels to Montgomery, AL; Chattanooga, TN; West Palm Beach, FL; and Little Rock, AR. Attends High Museum opening and delivers lecture in the Hill Auditorium on September 5 as part of “An Afternoon with Charles White.”165Program invitation, “An Afternoon with Charles White,” High Museum of Art file, reel 3190, CWP, AAA.

Sept. 30: Two Centuries of Black American Art, guest curated by David Driskell, opens at LACMA. In addition to exhibiting artwork, CW is commissioned to create the official poster for the show, for which he produces the lithograph I Have a Dream (1976).

CW requests that the poster be sold at an affordable price and that it be distributed free of charge in Los Angeles public schools.166F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 200–201; and Vondell Petry, “Black Images Portray Universal Message for Artist Charles White,” unidentified newspaper, clipping, reel 3194, CWP, AAA.

Nov. 3–6: Guest of honor at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Black Arts Festival (see fig. 18).167Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 6, 1976, clipping, reel 3192, CWP, AAA.

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Description: Charles White is the guest of honor at three-day Black Arts Festival held at the...

Fig. 18. White is the guest of honor at three-day Black Arts Festival held at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 6, 1976. Reel 3194, Charles White Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Nov. 16: National Advisory Board for the National Council for Black Studies makes CW a member.168Herman Hudson, dean for Afro-American Affairs, Indiana University, to White, Nov. 16, 1976, reel 3190, CWP, AAA.

1977

Aug. 8–12.: Teaches morning and evening painting workshops at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, presented in conjunction with The Work of Charles White: An American Experience, the traveling exhibition organized by the High Museum of Art.169Registration form for White’s painting workshop at the Arkansas Art Center, reel 3190, CWP, AAA.

Aug. 22: Appointed full professor and chair of the Drawing Department at Otis Art Institute.

Aug. 31: CW’s mother dies at age 79. The White family travels to Chicago for the funeral.170F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 209.

1978

Jan.: CW’s mural Mary McLeod Bethune, commissioned by the City of Los Angeles for the Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Regional Library in Exposition Park, is installed.171Ibid., 212.

Mar.: Attends international conference in Dresden as a corresponding member the German Akademie der Künste (Academy of Art).172Ibid., 216–20.

Apr. 24: California Afro-American Museum of History and Culture Advisory Board makes CW a commissioner at the invitation of California governor Jerry Brown (see fig. 19).

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Description: Governor Jerry Brown introduces Charles White and Edward Abie Robinson as new...

Fig. 19. Governor Jerry Brown introduces White and Edward “Abie” Robinson as new commissioners of the California Museum of Afro-American History and Culture (now the California African American Museum), 1978. Left to right: White, Brown, Assemblywoman Teresa Hughes, Edward “Abie” Robinson, and his wife, Gladys Lassco Robinson.

June: Howard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences offers CW a three-year distinguished professorship. He accepts the position and travels to the school three days a month for several months until his deteriorating health no longer permits the taxing schedule.173Edward D. Hawthorne, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Howard University, Washington, DC, to White, Nov. 30, 1978, reel 3191, CWP, AAA.

Sept.: Attends opening of Charles White: An American Experience at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery.

Oct.: Resumes teaching at Howard University.

Dec.: Cancels classes because of flu-like symptoms.

1979

Oct. 3: Dies of congestive heart failure at age 61 in Wadsworth Veterans Hospital, Los Angeles.

Nov. 4: A memorial jubilee in tribute to Charles White is held at the Los Angeles Museum of Science and Industry (now the California Science Center) in Exposition Park. Friend Poitier celebrates CW’s life, at one point joking, “Charlie was no angel in life, and I’ll bet he’s no angel now” (see fig. 20).174“Memorial Tribute,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Nov. 1, 1979, A14; see also “A Jubilee for Charlie: Stars and friends celebrate life of Charles White,” Ebony 35, no. 4 (Feb. 1980): 68–70, 72–73.

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Description: Sidney Poitier remembers his friendship with Charles White at memorial jubilee held...

Fig. 20. Sidney Poitier remembers his friendship with White at memorial jubilee held at the Museum of Science and Industry (now the California Science Center), Los Angeles. Ebony 35, no. 4 (Feb. 1980): 68.

1980

Fall: Freedomways magazine devotes an entire issue to CW, featuring essays and remembrances by Belafonte, Burroughs, and Cortor, among many others.

Oct. 25: The County of Los Angeles dedicates the Charles White Park in the artist’s neighborhood of Altadena.

1 White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 14, 1979, Charles White Archives, CA; and White, undated application (mid-1950s) for John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (hereafter Guggenheim Fellowship application), reel 3191, Charles W. White Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (hereafter CWP, AAA). »

2 White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 20, 1979; White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 33; and F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 30–31. »

3 White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 17, 1979; and F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 159–60. »

4 White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 17 and 20, 1979; and “The James Nelson Raymond Lecture Fund for Children of Members and Public Schools,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 28, no. 6.2 (Nov. 1934): 85–89. »

5 White recalled about a quarter of the students at Englewood were black; all the teachers were white. White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 34–35; see also White, Guggenheim Fellowship application (n. 1 above). »

6 White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 34. White never specified which union “stymied” his trade or what exactly they did, but it was likely the Sign, Scene and Pictorial Painters Union, which had its headquarters in Chicago. It had strict rules about issues such as apprentices, membership, and regulations and likely threatened the young White with legal action. »

7 White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 37. The Defender article in question may have been “Art Crafts Guild” from the December 10, 1932, issue. »

8 White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 20 and 24, 1979. »

9 White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 20, 1979; and White, Guggenheim Fellowship application (n. 1 above). See also Bernard Goss, “Art Chronicle: Ten Negro Artists on Chicago’s South Side,” Midwest—a Review (Dec. 1936): 17–19; and Willard F. Motley, “Negro Art in Chicago,” Opportunity 18, no. 1 (Jan. 1940): 19–22. According to F. B. White, White was offered the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts prize at age 16 and the Frederic Mizen Academy of Art scholarship a year later; see F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 32–33. »

10 Richard Wright, “Two Million Black Voices,” New Masses, Feb. 25, 1936, 15; and “Universal Unrest among Black People Revealed at National Negro Congress Here,” Chicago Defender, Feb. 22, 1936, 1. »

11 “Young Negroes Exhibit Drawing and Painting” and “Art Crafts Guild Present Awards,” unidentified newspaper clippings, reel 3195, CWP, AAA. »

12 “Receives Five Dollars, Art Set as Fourth Prize in Sketching Contest,” unidentified clipping dated Thursday, Oct. 1, 1936, reel 3195, CWP, AAA. »

13 White was a member of this union, but it is not known when he joined. White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 38; and “34 Strikers ‘Sit Down’ in Main Office of WPA: Protest Dismissals and Plan to Fire More,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Dec. 13, 1936. »

14 Goss, “Art Chronicle: Ten Negro Artists on Chicago’s South Side,” 17–19. »

15 “Englewood Students Win Honors, Cash in Scholastic Contest,” Chicago Defender, Apr. 1937, clipping, reel 3195, CWP, AAA. »

16 Associate Dean Norman Price to White, May 17, 1937, reel 3195, CWP, AAA. »

17 The Chicago-based Abraham Lincoln Center was founded in 1905 to serve a largely African American population and to promote socialist politics. White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 20, 1979. White’s two summers at the Wisconsin camp are mentioned in “Howard Art Gallery Exhibits Works of Nationally Known Young Artists,” Chicago Defender, Apr. 29, 1939, 5. »

18 Transcript, Department of Registration Records, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and White, oral history interview by Hoag. »

19 White, oral history interview by Fortess. »

20 Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection, Woodson Regional Library, Chicago Public Library (hereafter CPL); and “Miss Vivian Harsh Gets Library Post,” Chicago Defender, July 11, 1931, 4. »

21 White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 38–39; and civilian personnel record for Charles W. White, Works Progress Administration, National Personnel Records Center, National Archives and Records Administration at Saint Louis. »

22 “Chicago Will See Hughes’ New Play,” Chicago Defender, Nov. 5, 1938, 5; and White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 24, 1979. »

23 “Howard Art Gallery Exhibits Works of Nationally Known Young Artists,” Chicago Defender, Apr. 29, 1939, 5. »

24 Sponsors committee meeting notes, May 15, 1939, SCCAC Archives. »

25 White, oral history interview by Hoag. »

26 “Open Art Gallery,” Chicago Defender, Oct. 28, 1939, 15. »

27 “Artists and Models Ball Draws Capacity Crowd,” Chicago Defender, Oct. 28, 1939, 28; and “Washington Tops List of Race Leaders: Five Being Selected for Painting to Be Shown at Savoy Oct. 23,” Chicago Defender, Oct. 14, 1939, 23. »

28 Willard F. Motley, “Negro Art in Chicago,” Opportunity 18, no. 1 (Jan. 1940): 19–22, 28–31. »

29 Charles White, Rosenwald Fellowship application, 1941, Charles W. White fellowship file, Julius Rosenwald Fund Archives, box 456, file 6, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library, Special Collections and Archives, University, Nashville (hereafter Rosenwald Archives). »

30 “Art and the People,” Chicago Defender, Mar. 16, 1940, 3. »

31 White to Claude Barnett, July 23, 1940, Claude Barnett Papers, Chicago History Museum; “Shows History of Negro Press,” Chicago Bee, July 27, 1940, reel 3195, CWP, AAA; and “Exposition Mural Depicts History of Negro Press,” Chicago Defender, Aug. 10, 1940, 5. »

32 American Negro Exposition, 1863–1940: Official Program and Guide Book (Chicago: Exposition Authority, 1940); and Alain Locke, “The American Negro Exposition’s Showing of the Works of Negro Artists,” in American Negro Exposition, Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro (1851 to 1940) (Chicago: American Negro Exposition, 1940). »

33 Civilian personnel record for Charles W. White, WPA (n. 21 above). »

34 White, Rosenwald Fellowship application (n. 28 above). »

35 Diana Briggs, “First Lady Spends Busy Three Hours in Chicago,” Chicago Defender, May 17, 1941, 13; Alain Locke, “Chicago’s New Southside Art Center,” Magazine of Art 34, no. 7 (Aug.–Sept. 1941): 370–74; and Peter Pollack Papers, Scrapbook, 1939–1943, AAA. »

36 White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 24, 1979; and Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett, 36. »

37 For more on White’s mural commission, see the correspondence between Vivian Harsh and Carl Roden, Carl Roden Collection, Harold Washington Library Center, Special Collections, CPL. »

38 Civilian personnel record for Charles W. White, WPA (n. 21 above). »

39 Director for fellowships William C. Haygood, award letter to White, Apr. 18, 1942, reel 3195, CWP, AAA. »

40 See correspondence between William C. Haygood and White, White, Rosenwald Fellowship file (n. 28 above); and Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett, 29–30. »

41 Levine and Gordon, Tales of Wo-Chi-Ca; and Samantha White, “Race, Class, Space, and Memory at Wo-Chi-Ca: A Look at Radical Leftist Summer Camping,” Child and Youth Services 36, no. 1 (2015): 5–15. »

42 “Meet Mr., Mrs. Charles White: An Interesting and Talented Combination,” New York Amsterdam Star–News, Sept. 5, 1942, 15. »

43 White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 39. »

44 White, “Report of a Year’s Progress and Plan of Work for a Renewal of a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship,” Rosenwald Archives (n. 28 above); and Mrs. William C. Haygood, acting director for fellowships, to White, Apr. 21, 1943, reel 3195, CWP, AAA. »

45 Hampton Institute file, reel 3191, CWP, AAA; and “Art Today: Mural by a Talented Artist,” Daily Worker, Aug. 28, 1943, clipping, reel 3195, CWP, AAA. »

46 See 1943 correspondence between Mrs. William C. Haygood, acting director of fellowships, Julius Rosenwald Foundation, and White, in White, Rosenwald Fellowship file (n. 28 above). »

47 Herzog, “Art for the People: The George Washington Carver School,” in Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett, 36–40; and Ramona Lowe, “Harlem’s Carver School Draws Capacity Classrooms,” Chicago Defender, Feb. 5, 1944, 18. »

48 US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Washington, DC, file, synopsis, memorandum, Mar. 9, 1953; and White, Guggenheim Fellowship application (n. 1 above). »

49 FBI file, synopsis, Mar. 9, 1953, subheading Miscellaneous, 12–13. »

50 White, Guggenheim Fellowship application (n. 1 above). »

51 See subject file, Congress Vue, reel 3191, CWP, AAA. »

52 Harry Raymond, Dixie Comes to New York: Story of the Freeport GI Slayings (New York: Daily Worker, 1946); and Lisa Call, “Can a Negro Study Law in Texas?” New Masses, May 7, 1946: 3–5. »

53 For example, in February 1950 the Marxist monthly Masses and Mainstream (vol. 3, no. 2) published Toward Liberation (or Open Gate [1949; private collection]), The Ingram Case (see “Charles White: Feminist at Midcentury,” fig. 7), Trenton Six (pl. 29), and Frederick Douglass Lives Again (The Ghost of Frederick Douglass) [pl. 30]) in a special section, “Lift Every Voice.” Frederick Douglass Lives Again was also illustrated; Daily Worker, Feb. 12, 1950. The Ingram Case (1949) and Five Years Is Too Long! (c. 1950; location unknown) were reproduced in Paul Robeson’s periodical Freedom and on a cover of Sing Out! (vol. 2, no. 5 [May, 1952]; and vol. 3, no. 6 [Feb. 1953], respectively). Trenton Six was reproduced in the September 11, 1949, issue of The Worker and the March 1950 issue (vol. 1) of Challenge. »

54 FBI file, synopsis, Mar. 9, 1953, subsection United Negro and Allied Veterans of America, 9. »

55 Quoted in John Pittman, “He Was an Implacable Critic of His Own Creations,” Freedomways 20, no. 3 (1980): 191; see also Alison Cameron, “Buenos Vecinos: African-American Printmaking and the Taller de Gráfica Popular,” Print Quarterly 16, no. 4 (Dec. 1999): 353–67. »

56 Catlett remained in Mexico. There she married fellow TGP member Francisco Mora and eventually became a Mexican citizen in 1962. Margaret Burroughs, “A Woman’s Viewpoint: Negro Artists Active in Mexico,” Philadelphia Tribune, Sept. 18, 1951, 6. »

57 The CNA sponsored White’s 1950 solo show at the American Contemporary Art Gallery and hosted a reception in his honor on opening night (see “Charles White: Feminist at Midcentury,” fig. 6). F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 55–58; and CNA press release and reception invitation promoting White’s 1950 ACA Gallery Show, reel 3195, CWP, AAA. »

58 Daily Worker, Apr. 14, 12, cited in FBI file, supplemental correlation summary, Jan. 21, 1958. »

59 Wo-Chi-Ca brochure, “Building for the Future,” c. 1947, in printed material and lecture announcements, reel 3194, CWP AAA. »

60 Dalton Trumbo file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA. »

61 F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 13–14. »

62 Workshop for Graphic Art, Yes, the People (New York: Workshop for Graphic Art, 1948); Angelica Kaufman, “The Graphic Workshop and Its First Portfolio,” Daily Worker, Dec. 20, 1948, 12; and Workshop for Graphic Art, Negro USA (New York: Workshop for Graphic Art, 1949). The 1949 portfolio Negro USA featured a lithograph by White on its cover. »

63 F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 16–18. »

64 Ibid., 47–49. Addresses of White’s known residences are listed in a memorandum in his FBI file dated March 9, 1950. »

65 Workshop School of Advertising and Editorial Art file, reel 3194, CWP, AAA. »

66 Paul Vanderbilt, Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, to White, July 18, 1950, reel 3192, CWP, AAA. »

67 “100 Leaders Hit Intervention in Korea as War for Slavery,” Daily Worker, July 24, 1950. »

68 FBI file, correlation summary, Dec. 7, 1956. »

69 F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 52–53; The Artist and the Museum: The Report of the Third Woodstock Art Conference Sponsored by Artists Equity Association and the Woodstock Artists Association (New York: American Artists Group, 1950); and “Museums Talk with Artists on Joint Problems: Woodstock Conference Sets Up Groundwork for New System of Co-operation,” New York Herald Tribune, Dec. 30, 1951, 17. »

70 John Pittman, “Charles White’s Exciting ‘Negro Woman’ Show at ACA,” Daily Worker, Feb. 26, 1951. »

71 Howard Fast, We March for Peace—May Day 1951 (New York: United Labor and People’s Committee for May Day, 1951). »

72 Third World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA. »

73 Diaries—trip to USSR, 1950 [sic] file, reel 3099, CWP, AAA. »

74 German American, Inc., thank-you letter to White, Nov. 16, 1951, reel 3195, CWP, AAA. »

75 FBI file, correlation summary, Dec. 7, 1956. »

76 White, interview by Clothier, Sept. 26, 1979; FBI file subheading Miscellaneous, synopsis, Mar. 9, 1953, 14. »

77 Synopsis, Mar. 9, 1953, FBI file, subsection National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions. »

78 White, “Until the Day I Die, My Life Is Dedicated to My People,” Freedom, Mar. 1952, clipping, reel 3193, CWP, AAA; and “Veteran’s Art Show Opens March 29,” Daily Worker, Feb. 5, 1952, 7. »

79 Whitney Museum director Herman More to White, May 7, 1952, reel 3195, CWP, AAA; and Leon Kroll, chairman of Committee on Grants for Arts, National Institute of Arts and Letters, award letter to White, May 28, 1952, reel 3195. »

80 F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 69–70; see also Edmund W. Gordon file, reel 3191, CWP, AAA. In the handwritten notes accompanying the subject file, Frances White described Gordon, along with Crichlow, Ivan Dixon, and Carlton Moss, as one of White’s closest friends. »

81 The article was reprinted in the November 7, 1952, issue of the Daily Worker. »

82 “Robert Minor’s Fellow Workers Pay Tribute to a Fearless Fighter for Peace, Socialism,” Daily Worker, Dec. 2, 1952, 8. »

83 F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 71. »

84 “Notables in Art Who Urge Clemency,” Daily Worker, Feb. 16, 1953. »

85 Sidney Finkelstein, “Charles White’s Humanist Art,” Masses and Mainstream 6, no. 2 (Feb. 1953): 43–46. »

86 “Fight Back Rally for Culture,” Daily Worker, Mar. 12, 1953. »

87 FBI file, memorandum, Sept. 9, 1953. »

88 White, Charles White: Six Drawings. »

89 Philip Evergood, “Charles White: Beauty and Strength,” Masses and Mainstream 6, no. 8 (Aug. 1953): 36–39, quotation on 39, emphasis in the original. »

90 FBI file, memorandum, Apr. 12, 1955. »

91 White’s contact at Vanguard was likely Sidney Finkelstein, who worked there in 1951–73, in addition to working as an art critic. Record album covers file, reel 3099, CWP, AAA. Finkelstein was also the author of the first monograph on White. »

92 FBI file, memorandum, July 7, 1955. »

93 White, “Humanist Art,” review of The Best Untold: A Book of Paintings by Edward Biberman, Masses and Mainstream 7, no. 5 (May 1954): 59–60. White later became friends with Biberman; see Ilene Susan Fort’s essay in this volume. »

94 White, “Statement,” Masses and Mainstream 7, no. 11 (Nov. 1954): 46–47. »

95 FBI file, memorandum, Apr. 28, 1953. »

96 Advertisement, Daily Worker, Jan. 9, 1955, 13. »

97 White, “Path of a Negro Artist,” 43–44. »

98 Correspondence between Charles F. Jones, acting program secretary for opportunity fellowships, John Hay Whitney Foundation, and White, reel 3194, CWP, AAA. »

99 F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 123. »

100 Ibid., 81. »

101 Bernstein later produced Jean Genet’s Blacks in New York; its playbill cover was illustrated by White. F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 86–88. »

102 Esther Jones, “Artist Charles White Settles in Pasadena,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Thursday, Nov. 8, 1956, clipping, reel 3195, CWP, AAA. »

103 F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 102–4. »

104 In 1963 the Friends of Jewish Secular Education bestowed upon White the Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky Award, which honored “outstanding personalities who have made lasting contributions to Jewish secular culture.” See Westside Jewish Community Center file, reel 3194, CWP, AAA; and I. Goldberg, award letter to White, Dec. 12, 1963, reel 3189. »

105 FBI file, memorandum, Feb. 24, 1958. »

106 White’s involvement included exhibiting works and jurying shows for the Pasadena Artist Associates, the Pasadena Festival of the Arts, the Avalon Community Arts Center, and the Federation of Women’s Clubs of the Verdugo District. He maintained a relationship with the YWCA and received the organization’s Artist of the Year award in 1961. Although White did not identify as religious, he engaged with a number of churches in this community capacity, including the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles. Invitation to YWCA–Woodlawn Special Christmas Program, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

107 F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 97–98. »

108 Other leading artists listed were Bearden, Cortor, Marion Perkins, and Sebree. “Leading Young Artists,” Ebony 13 (Apr. 1958): 33–38. »

109 More industry commissions followed, and his work appeared in the movies Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) and For Love of Ivy (1968). »

110 A lifelong friend of White’s, Belafonte was the subject of a number of portraits by the artist, including Folksinger (Voice of Jericho: Portrait of Harry Belafonte) (pl. 72) and J’Accuse #6 (pl. 81). »

111 A. Philip Randolph and Martin Luther King Jr. to Mr. and Mrs. White, June 9, 1960, reel 3192, CWP, AAA. »

112 White continued to serve as judge for the competition through 1966. He judged a host of other community competitions in the area, including the LA City School District’s Scholastic Art Exhibit (1965), Exhibit for the Handicapped, United Cerebral Palsy Association of Los Angeles County Art (1966), the Southern California Teachers Art Show (1966), the Sunday at the Bowl Festival of Art and Music (1966), the Leimert Park Festival of the Arts (1967), and the Peace Corps (1971). See correspondence with Safety Savings and Loan Association, reel 3189, CWP, AAA; see also Los Angeles City Unified School District file, reel 3192; and Pasadena Unified School District file, reel 3193. »

113 Esther B. Jones, “Charles White Exhibit Enriching Experience,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Nov. 9, 1961, C1. »

114 Elsa Knight Thompson, director of public affairs, KPFA, to White, Nov. 3, 1961, reel 3192, CWP, AAA. »

115 Thomas M. Rees, thank-you letter to White, Sept. 8, 1962, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

116 Executive director Vantile E. Whitfield, award letter to White, July 23, 1962, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

117 Event program, reel 3194, CWP, AAA. At the time, Baldwin’s seminal collection of essays on American racism, The Fire Next Time, had just been published. White’s copy, with the inscription “for Brother Charles: Hold tight / Jim Baldwin,” remains in his library. »

118 Hoyt W. Fuller, “Charles White, Artist,” Negro Digest 12, no. 9 (July 1963): 40–45. »

119 The house was completed by 1966; see F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 112–13. »

120 F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 123. »

121 White taught at Otis until his death in 1979. Over the course of his tenure, he taught and influenced a host of artists; Otis Art Institute file, reel 3189, CWP, AAA; and Esther Adler’s essay in this volume. »

122 Golden State’s collection of African American art included work by Charles Alston, Richmond Barthé, Betye Saar, and Hale Woodruff. White’s friendship with William Pajaud, a painter who worked in the publicity division, led to many collaborations with the insurance company, notably his inclusion in a complimentary calendar (for example, see “Charles White, Artist and Teacher,” fig. 4) that reproduced artwork by African American artists. See Golden State Mutual Life, reel 3192, CWP, AAA. »

123 “Charles White Will Speak at ‘American Negro Art Exhibit,’” Center News 16, no. 9 (Feb. 1966), copy, reel 3194, CWP, AAA. »

124 Executive producer of community television of Southern California Tom Burrows to White, Oct. 24, 1966, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

125 “The Drawings of Charles White: Images of Dignity,” Negro Digest 16, no. 8 (June 1967): 40–48, quotation on 40, 42 (picture on 41). »

126 Louie Robinson, “Charles White: Portrayer of Black Dignity,” Ebony 22, no. 9 (July 1967): 25–28, 30, 32, 34–36, quotation on 28, emphasis in the original. »

127 Program for memorial service, reel 3192, CWP, AAA; Pearl Bowser, co-coordinator of benefit exhibition In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to White, Oct. 23, 1968; and A Tribute to the Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. exhibition pamphlet, reel 3192, CWP, AAA. »

128 Mary Jane Hewitt, first vice president of Inner City Cultural Center, to White, June 21, 1968, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

129 “Art Notes,” Negro Digest 17, no. 10 (Aug. 1968): 68. »

130 University of California Extension file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA. »

131 Dwight Casimere, “Charles White: Giant of American Art Portrays: The Original Man,” Muhammad Speaks, Dec. 6 and 20, 1968, copy, reel 3194, CWP, AAA. »

132 “The Black Academy of Arts and Letters,” Negro Digest 18, no. 7 (May 1969): 58, 89. »

133 Harold L. Hamill, city librarian, to White, Apr. 29, 1969, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

134 F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 149–50. »

135 Marx Bercutt and Warner Brothers— Seven Arts, telegram to White, July 5, 1969, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

136 Black Arts Council file, reel 3192, CWP, AAA. »

137 Southern Oregon College file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA. »

138 Tamarind Institute file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA. »

139 Doris E. Saunders, “S.S. Art Center Reception for Charles White,” Chicago Defender, Feb. 24, 1970, 18. »

140 Assistant to the registrar Sybil Herschbein to White, May 12, 1970, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

141 Program flyer, reel 3194, CWP, AAA. »

142 “Additional Art News,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 25, 1970, clipping, reel 3194, CWP, AAA. »

143 The exhibition—the first African American art show at LACMA in thirty-five years—was the outcome of pressure applied by the Black Arts Council, an organization founded in 1968 to support black artists. Members believed that White should have been offered a solo show in a larger exhibition space. Black Arts Council file, reel 3192, CWP, AAA. »

144 Graphic Arts Council at LACMA file, reel 3191, CWP, AAA. »

145 White, “I Paint My Folks,” Drum Major 1, no. 2 (Winter 1971): 19–20. »

146 Claude Booker, Black Arts Council president, to White, Aug. 31, 1972, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

147 The three-day conference, sponsored by the Black Academy of Arts and Letters and underwritten by the National Foundation for the Arts and the Johnson Publishing Company, featured nearly 200 black artists, actors, writers, and students, including author John O. Killens, actress Ruby Dee, and Ebony editor Lerone Bennett Jr.; “Black Arts Struggle for Freedom,” Jet, June 15, 1972, 42–44. »

148 Scholastic Book Services subject file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA. »

149 Charles White, “Desegregation and the Richmond Story,” CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) 2, no. 3 (1972): 7. »

150 Joanne Dale, chairman of Authors-Illustrators Recognition Luncheon, City of Los Angeles, Superintendent of Schools, to White, Nov. 22, 1972, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

151 Information from Henderson’s interview informed the section on White in his 1993 book coauthored with Romare Bearden, A History of African-American Artists: From 1792 to the Present (New York: Pantheon, 1993). »

152 Ronald Day, directing supervisor of art, Cleveland Public Schools, to White, Oct. 10, 1972, reel 3192, CWP, AAA. »

153 Award ceremony invitation, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

154 “Frances and Charles White: They Share a Life Where Art Is Served Up with Every Meal,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 13, 1974, Home Q&A, 74, emphasis in the original. »

155 Ulis Williams, director of community services, Compton Community College, to White, Oct. 17, 1974, reel 3191, CWP, AAA. »

156 Invitation from seminar organizer Edmund B. Gaither and detailed program for Kindred Spirits, reel 3192, CWP, AAA. »

157 Tom Bradley, mayor of Los Angeles, file, reel 3190, CWP, AAA. »

158 “Bennett and White Feted for Black History Book,” Jet, Mar. 6, 1975, 12–13. »

159 Ernestine Henning, chairwoman RSBWC, to White, Apr. 8, 1975, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

160 Coordinator Jimmy McDonal to White, June 5, 1975, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

161 Richard V. Clarke, chairman of the board, Studio Museum in Harlem, to White, Sept. 30, 1975, reel 3189, CWP, AAA. »

162 Leadbelly file, reel 3192, CWP, AAA. »

163 Artists for Economic Action file, reel 3190, CWP, AAA. »

164 The Pasadena Arts Council made him a member in 1978. Pasadena Arts Council file, reel 3193, CWP, AAA. »

165 Program invitation, “An Afternoon with Charles White,” High Museum of Art file, reel 3190, CWP, AAA. »

166 F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 200–201; and Vondell Petry, “Black Images Portray Universal Message for Artist Charles White,” unidentified newspaper, clipping, reel 3194, CWP, AAA. »

167 Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 6, 1976, clipping, reel 3192, CWP, AAA. »

168 Herman Hudson, dean for Afro-American Affairs, Indiana University, to White, Nov. 16, 1976, reel 3190, CWP, AAA. »

169 Registration form for White’s painting workshop at the Arkansas Art Center, reel 3190, CWP, AAA. »

170 F. B. White, Reaches of the Heart, 209. »

171 Ibid., 212. »

172 Ibid., 216–20. »

173 Edward D. Hawthorne, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Howard University, Washington, DC, to White, Nov. 30, 1978, reel 3191, CWP, AAA. »

174 “Memorial Tribute,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Nov. 1, 1979, A14; see also “A Jubilee for Charlie: Stars and friends celebrate life of Charles White,” Ebony 35, no. 4 (Feb. 1980): 68–70, 72–73. »

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