Faith Ringgold photographed in New Jersey on Nov 23, 2015. KATHERINE MCMAHON
“[I realized] I can’t tell your story, I can only tell mine. I can’t be you, I can only be me,”
An important and inspiring read with need to know history > The Storyteller: At 85, Her Star Still Rising, Faith Ringgold Looks Back on Her Life in Art, Activism, and Education
Faith Ringgold, The American People Series #20: Die, 1967.
Ringgold’s original plan had been to study art. But when she showed up at City College’s School of Liberal Arts, she was informed that it did not admit women. “They’re sitting there trying to make me understand that I cannot get a liberal arts degree there,” she said, “and I am refusing to understand. And out of it, one woman says”—Ringgold dropped her voice to a whisper—“ ‘She can do it. Let me tell you how. She can [enroll in the School of Education] and major in art.’ ”
Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach, 1988.