In this fraught climate, Ringgold devised the last and largest of her murals, American People Series #20: Die (hereafter Die, as it was known at the time).(5) Over its twelve-foot span, the painting envisions the collapse of the contemporary social order in the form of ten more or less life-size, well-dressed adults-almost evenly divided between black and white-who flight, flee, or die as an interracial pair of children cowers unnoticed in their midst. Many in moments of anger, many in moments of deep bitterness engage in riots.”(4) observed in 1967 that “all our cities are potentially powder kegs…. If America don’t come around, we’re going to burn America down, brother.”(3) Even the famously nonviolent Rev. Rap Brown, who announced during the Long Hot Summer that “Black folks built America. Photo: Bud LeeĪlthough New York was spared in 1967, anxiety was rampant that “the disorder was the beginning of a ‘black revolution,’” as one reporter put it.(2) His comment was grounded in a rhetorical tradition that included Malcolm X, who spoke of revolution in 19 LeRoi Jones (soon to change his name to Amiri Baraka), a profound influence on Ringgold and leading light of the Black Arts Movement, who asserted in 1965 that “a Black Artist’s role in America is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it” and H.
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