When David Driskell’s major undertaking, Two Centuries of Black American Art, took place at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, and the Brooklyn Museum, it represented a major boost to the awareness of African American art as a foundational cornerstone of American Art. Reader’s Digest picked upon this awareness and its June 1978 issue carried a picture feature “Black Art in America”, in which “Most of the work reproduced here appeared in that major historical survey.” Having opened its short text with a recollection of the discrimination faced by Edward Bannister in 1876, the text, by Ponchitta Pierce, began its conclusion by claiming, “Today, with greater acceptance, black artists enjoy the same freedom as other artists in America to paint whatever they wish and to be accepted on the merit of their work.”

The final illustration in the feature was by Charles White and was accompanied by the following text: ““Take My Mother Home,” Chinese ink and colored ink, 1950, by Charles White. Born in Chicago’s South Side in 21918, he started painting on his mother’s window shades and later worked on WPA projects.”