Renowned art historian Leslie King Hammond will analyze the legacy of Jacob Lawrence, who documented American and African American history, which was routinely denigrated, denied, and erased in his era. Lawrence was a masterful storyteller who created modernist figurative compositions. He was especially inspired by the stories and histories of iconic freedom fighters like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and John Brown. The images of their tenacious struggles for liberation and freedom, created in series of paintings and prints, have helped to secure Lawrence’s revered place within the legacy of American modernist art traditions.