Inevitably, Charles White was one of the artists included in David Driskell’s landmark survey exhibition, Two Centuries of Black American Art, which premiered at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, September 30, 1976–November 21, 1976. This was LACMA’s major exhibition for the American bicentennial year, and was the first comprehensive survey of African American art which, following its premier at LACMA, toured three other major U.S. art institutions [the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, January 8, 1977–February 20, 1977; the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, March 30, 1977–May 15, 1977; and the Brooklyn Museum, June 25, 1977–August 21, 1977]. The premise of Two Centuries of Black American Art was to acknowledge the work of Black artists during the two centuries period of 1750 to 1950, whose contributions to American art had largely been neglected. Featuring over 200 works and 63+ artists, the show included painting, sculpture, drawing, graphics, crafts and decorative arts

White was represented in the catalogue by multiple references, through the publication, a total of three images, and one dedicated page which consisted of an edited CV, a one paragraph summary of White’s significance as an artist, plus a list of the eight images of his work, included in the exhibition. Alongside the page of text there appeared a reproduction of Seed of Love, a 1969 ink drawing in the LACMA collection. Seed of Love was a drawing of a noticeably pregnant young African American woman, in profile.

Along with Charles White, Two Centuries of Black American Art included:

Charles H. Alston

William E. Artis

John James Audubon

Edward M. Bannister

Richmond Barthé

Romare Bearden

John Biggers

Grafton Tyler Brown

Selma Burke

Calvin Burnett

Margaret T. Burroughs

David Butler

Elizabeth Catlett

Claude Clark

Eldzier Cortor

Allan Rohan Crite

Joseph Delaney

Aaron Douglas

Robert S. Duncanson

William Edmondson

Minnie Evans

Edwin A. Harleston

Palmer Hayden

James V. Herring

Felrath Hines

Earl J. Hooks

Julian Hudson

Clementine Hunter

Wilmer Jennings

Malvin Gray Johnson

Sargent Johnson

William H. Johnson

Joshua Johnston

Lois Mailou Jones

Jacob Lawrence

Hughie Lee-Smith

Edmonia Lewis

Norman Lewis

Jules Lion

Richard Mayhew

Sam Middleton

Archibald J. Motley, Jr.

Marion Perkins

Horace Pippin

James A. Porter

Patrick Reason

John Rhoden

Gregory Ridley

William Edouard Scott

Charles Sebree

Henry Ossawa Tanner

William Taylor

Alma W. Thomas

Dox Thrash

Laura Wheeler Waring

Edward Webster

James Lesesne Wells

Charles White

Walter Williams

Ed Wilson

Ellis Wilson

John Wilson

Hale Woodruff

Note: though not listed in the Index of Artists, the catalogue also included work by artists such as Dave the Potter and Thomas Day.

LACMA had organized at least one previous exhibition that included work by Charles White: Three Graphic Artists: Charles White, David Hammons, Timothy Washington (1971).

A work by Charles White, I Have A Dream (1976), was used on the poster for the Two Centuries of Black American Art exhibition.