Singing their songs from the "For My People" portfolio,

Singing their songs from the "For My People" portfolio,

Elizabeth S. Catlett

1992

Color lithograph on cream wove paper
Signed, titled, dated and numbered 42/99

Poet Margaret Walker (1915-1998) — Catlett’s roommate at the University of Iowa, long-time friend, and an important figure in the Black Chicago Renaissance — first published her award-winning epic ten stanza poem “For my People” in Poetry magazine in 1937. The poem explores the hardships endured by generations of African Americans. As a commission in 1992, Catlett created a portfolio of six color lithographs for the fiftieth anniversary of Walker’s first book of poetry by the same title, published in 1942, which was an exploration of race and heritage.

Singing their songs corresponds to the stanza:

For my people everywhere singing their slave songs repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties and their blues and their jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an unseen power …

Museum Purchase made possible in part by a generous gift from Jane Joel Knox, 2020.31.1