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Home , Augusta Savage, Charles Alston

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Jacob Lawrence: An Interview conducted by David C. Driskell and James Buell

Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. His parents were part of the migration of from the South seeking jobs in the North during World War I. Lawrence, with his mother and siblings, settled in in 1929, where he was enrolled in after-school programs. Encouraged in art by and , he also attended on scholarship the American Artists School (formerly the John Reed Club Art School) during 1936-38. In Harlem in 1937 the WPA Living Theater produced a play popularizing the history of the Haitian liberator Toussaint L'Ouverture. That year Lawrence began his own Toussaint L'Ouverture project of 41 panels, the first in a text/image series he did on African American history. Other series followed: Frederick Douglass, 1938-39; Harriet Tubman, 1939-40; The Migration, 1940-41; and John Brown, 1941-42. In 1941 he married artist . In 1982 David Driskell and James Buell published a catalogue with Lawrence's original texts for each panel in the Toussaint series, as well as an interview in which Lawrence acknowledges the positive influence the Harlem community had on his development as an artist. To Lawrence and other young artists, such as Knight, , and Robert Blackburn, the art centers were central to the cultural life of Harlem.

Buell: Where were you when you painted The Toussaint L'Ouverture Series? Lawrence: I was in Harlem. There was quite a bit of interest in black history at that time—street corner orators talking about social issues and things of that kind. It was 1938 and I was 21 years old. And there was a lot of activity in the Harlem community. We were in the Depression. And this kind of thing, I guess attracted me. We had Negro history clubs in the schools and the libraries. And teachers and various people were speaking of Frederick Douglass, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Harriet Tubman. That was the motivation. Buell: That was one of the questions I wanted to ask. How did you know about Toussaint L'Ouverture? Lawrence: Out of the community. People speaking about these things, about liberation, and people like this became the symbol of what people would talk about. As a youngster I guess I wanted an identity. I didn't think in those terms then, but in retrospect, analyzing my motivation, I think that is what it was. And it made for a very colorful method, working in a series form, telling a story.

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Buell: Did you study art with anybody as a kid? Lawrence: Yes. There were many centers as you know, throughout the country. In the depth of the Depression the Roosevelt administration established various programs and centers throughout the country. If you were interested in music or dance or theatre or art, you could go to one of these centers. I went into one of them, and the first person with whom I came into contact wasn't much older than I. That was Charles Alston. He was studying at , taking his master's degree there. I went into the Utopia Children's House—it was an after school center. And he was like a counselor there while he was going to school. They offered us arts and crafts. That was my first contact.

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Buell: You were 21 years old when you did this. Had you ever shown anything anywhere? Lawrence: Well, the Harlem community was very supportive—people like Augusta Savage and various people in the community older than myself. And this was all part of the centers, the art centers 2 that were established through the WPA and that sort of thing. So people were very supportive and very encouraging to youngsters like myself.

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Buell: What was Harlem like in those years? Lawrence: To me in retrospect it was a great community; it was a very fascinating community. If you had asked me this forty years ago, I couldn't have used these terms. It was my life. It was a very exciting place. I never lived any place else where I had this kind of rapport with the community. It was a very cohesive community. You knew people. You didn't know their names, but you'd pass people on the street and see the face over and over again. It was that kind of a community. It was a very vital, exciting community. At least it was for me, and from what I hear from many other people my age. You knew the police, you knew the firemen, you knew the teachers, the people on the street. You knew the peddlars. It was me I'll put it that way. Buell: And you knew other painters and writers and dancers? Lawrence: People would come up to the centers. People like Katherine Durham, Countee Cullen, . They may not have talked to me because I was too young, but I would hear their conversations with each other. And not just blacks, but people from outside the black community--very interested artists. There was this interchange. And, being a youngster, I guess subconsciously I was influenced by this. They would talk about their involvement in the arts and things like that.

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These people came before me, but they were very important to me. I didn't realize at that time. It is only in retrospect that I realize this. This was all part of the , it was a part of that period. Locke was the first black critic to articulate and interpret and intellectualize the black artist.

From: Jacob Lawrence, The "Toussaint L'Ouverture" Series (New York: Church Board for Homeland Ministries, 1982).