Ringgold: American People Series #20: Die

Faith Ringgold was painting murals in an empty Manhattan gallery during the Long Hot Summer of 1967, when police brutality erupted across the country in response to citizen uprisings, and the Black Arts Movement continued to gain momentum. In this time and place, Ringgold’s American People Series #20: Die was born. Influenced by figures such as Leroi Jones (soon to be Amiri Baraka) and James Baldwin, her American People series registers how her perspective evolved as the integrationist ethos of the civil rights movement shifted to the nationalist one of Black Power. The adults in Die are shown in a tangled spectacle of bloodshed and chaos. Unnoticed by them, two children below cower together. Die represents a canny negotiation of Ringgold’s position as a black woman in an art world then still largely segregated by race and gender.