"Jacob Lawrence did not need to look far to find a heroic African American woman for this image of a solitary black laundress: his mother had spent long hours cleaning homes to support her children. Both she and the artist's father had "come up"--a phrase used to indicate one of the most important events in African American history since Reconstruction: the migration of African Americans out of the rural South. This exodus was gathering strength at the time of World War I, and fundamentally altered the ethnic mix of New York City and great industrial centers such as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh."
Lawrence's painting is on the TV wall, the top left one in the trio.
Why was Lawrence like a West African griot? A griot is a professional poet, who perpetuates history and geneaolgy through tales and music.
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