The June 1967 issue of Negro Digest carried a feature promoting the recently released Charles White book, Images of Dignity. A drawing from the book, Work (depicting a young African American worker), 1953. Wolff crayon and charcoal on illustration board, 44 × 28″ (111.8 × 71.1 cm) appeared on the cover. This was a nine-page feature, running from page 40 – 48. The uncredited piece was introduced as follows: A new book about the life and work of America’s most popular Black artist provides a dramatic illustration of his success, which lies in his never-wavering concern for the humanity and suffering of his people
Interspersed among the eight drawings reproduced in the feature was a text introducing White and summarising the book. The piece began, “Of the two best known Black artists in America – Charles White and Jacob Lawrence – Charles White is by far the most popular. It might even be said that 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.
In his successful career as a full-time painter, White, like Hughes, has found favour and support among the Black people who are his subjects. More affluent collectors like Harry Belafonte and Eartha Kitt own one or more original works by White, but thousands of ordinary people all over the country have for many years coveted the modestly-priced reproductions which have been made available in art shops and book stores."
Elsewhere the text states that “The artist… is part Creek Indian.” And that “during the late Thirties and Early Forties… [White] met and became friend or associate of a number of talented Black people who were to make an impact on the cultural life of the nation. Among these were Gordon Parks, Katherine Dunham, Gwendolyn Brooks, E. Sims Campbell, Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Theodore Ward and Willard Motley.”