Trailblazers in Black History: Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold is an African-American artist, best known for her narrative quilts. 

Faith Ringgold was born the youngest of three children on October 8, 1930 in Harlem Hospital, New York City. Her parents, Andrew Louis Jones and Willie Posey Jones, descended from working-class families displaced by the Great Migration. Because her mother was a fashion designer and father an avid storyteller, Ringgold was exposed to creativity from an early age. 

After the Harlem Renaissance, Ringgold’s childhood home in Harlem was left with a vibrant and thriving arts scene. Figures like Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes lived just around the corner from her home.Her childhood friend, Sonny Rollins, who would later become a prominent jazz musician, often visited her family and practiced his saxophone at their parties. Because of her chronic asthma, Ringold explored visual art as a major pastime through the support of her mother, often experimenting with crayons as a young girl.

Additional information is available here. 

Source: Wikipedia