Meet James Woodall
He was at the forefront of demonstrations for racial equity in the summer of 2020. You can learn about him and his family in our book.
We first met James Woodall in the summer of 2021, just after he had left the NAACP. There, he had been the youngest-ever state president of the state of Georgia. It had been an intense period of leadership. James was at the helm when Ahmaud Arbery was killed in eastern Georgia, and he was a constant presence in Atlanta that summer when many people joined demonstrations to protest the murder of George Floyd and other police shootings. He inspired people at the time, and was an NAACP leader that people wanted to follow, an NAACP elder would tell us.
We set out to understand the financial path that had brought him to his young success. We got to know his family deeply over the past few years to piece together the financial opportunities and barriers they had faced. The stories of his great-grandparents, grandparents and his parents led to James Woodall. He stands on their shoulders.
Our Book Cover
Like James Woodall, we all stand on the shoulders that came before us. That’s part of why the Black-white wealth gap is so persistent. To capture this idea, we chose a cover image that shows a young girl on her father’s shoulders. She looks out ahead, her arms wide open. Is she embracing the future? Is she doing that classic child’s “soooo big” symbol?” Is the sky ahead bright or hazy and unclear? We would love to hear your thoughts back — reply to this email.
Artists We Worked With
We worked with two artists for our project, and we wanted to share their art and a bit about them and their views of the Black-white gap, as Black artists.
Brooklyn-based artist Frances Smith created the graphics that are in the book. She also partnered with us to produce a series that puts the Black-white wealth gap in context with other changes since the Civil War. Many things have changed in major ways, but the gap has closed only slowly. Take a look:
We asked Frances a few questions recently.
Who are your influences for your art? How did you become an artist?
I've always been drawn to art that manages to be both conceptual and straightforward. Some of my influences for my art include artists such as Hiroshi Nagai, with his clean, pop-art-inspired landscapes, and Paula Scher, with her bold typographic work. I'm also influenced by artists across other mediums, such as Alice Coltrane, whose ethereal sounds add an auditory layer to my visual inspiration, and filmmakers such as Brit Marling, who challenge me to think differently about storytelling. Initially, I didn't see a clear path to making a living from my art, so I ventured into graphic design. This has allowed me to continue my personal art projects on the side. Over time, I've found that they often overlap and feed into each other!
How do you think about the Black-white wealth gap as an artist? Is it the sort of thing that can be easily illustrated?
I see the Black-white wealth gap as twofold: there’s not only a financial discrepancy but also a knowledge and accessibility gap. Illustrating such a multifaceted topic doesn’t have to be complicated when the data on these disparities speak for themselves. As an artist, I am challenged to turn these complex issues into visuals that provoke thought and inspire action. I find that the artwork that resonates most often does so through its simplicity and directness, which is why I adopted an editorial approach for this project.
Do you see (or have you seen) the Black-white wealth gap in your life? If so, how?
Absolutely, the Black-white wealth gap has been a real factor in my career. In one of my first roles, I learned that I was earning less than my non-Black and male colleagues, even though we had similar work experience and expertise. It was a stark reminder of the deep-rooted inequalities that still exist and how much you have to advocate for yourself. It’s about fairness and recognition, and experiencing this disparity firsthand only strengthened my commitment to use my art and voice to challenge these issues and advocate for change.
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We also worked with Pasadena-based artist, Jordan Mitchell, to create some art that illustrates the Black-white wealth gap.
First, he created this image of cars crossing a bridge. As he explained it to us, the fire ahead is what it feels like to be a Black American pursuing progress. “You’re just trying to get to work, and you’re blocked.”
We asked Jordan a few questions.
How did you get into art?
Honestly it’s been something I’ve done all my life like you know how printers used to have those long runs of paper, I would constantly get in trouble as a 4 year old drawing on the entire stack in my dad’s office. He was a salesman so he would come home to do extra calls. He sold automotive parts for big companies so he would have to take extra calls when he came back.. I would draw and pull more paper out and keep drawing there.
What are your artistic influences?
My earliest influences were cartoons and comic books that was what I wanted to do until second year of college. Becky Cloonan. I was obsessed with her work she did for Tokyopop.
Jim Lee at Marvel and DC Comics. I also liked the cartoons in The New Yorker and Wired magazines. I still have a goal of working for Wired and GQ. I really enjoy illustration. The act of it is the act of translation you are taking ideas and you are translate to a visual medium in order to a both tell the story but also make them think about the overall premise of what’s being said It’s not enough to just put something point blank on a page you have to give them reason to want to sit there and stare on it. It’s one thing to put a can of coke on an advertising and just say merry christmas but when you have a polar bear or Santa sipping on a coke then you give people something to think about in a different context.
The act of illustration is something I consider to be a very American medium because in terms of advertising and the way we do pop art it fits into our whole lives. Art shapes us at every level even though a lot of people don’t believe that from the things we wear to the tv shows we watch to even the way our homes look because at some point someone drew all of this before it ended up anywhere.
How do you find the art world as a Black American artist?
The art world in itself is not a very accessible place to be in. While art in and of itself is one of the most accessible things we have, the goal of making it as a famous artist is not accessible to people of color.
There are gatekeepers, and there’s a history. At some point it was simply because of race and people did not respect Black art and they did they treated it as outlier. They treated it as a spectacle. They said ‘look, this one can draw.’
It’s also a class thing. It’s all about money. And if you are a person of color and not well-off, you probably are not going to be able to afford an art school where classes are $3,000 a piece.
Has this gap held you back?
I have it a lot better than people would have it 20-30 years ago.. There are definitely times like that where the fact that I am a Black person in the spaces I am and people seem to expect less of me. They are constantly surprised that I am able to be as competent in my work as I am, and that can be a very frustrating thing. With animation, they’ll say, ‘Oh you can do this?’
Tell us about the two pieces you created to illustrate the Black-white wealth gap.
Both pieces are digital, they use photos by me. For the purple piece (shown above), I wanted to show something early in the morning or late at night and show that commerce is still happening in that point for anybody in the lower tax bracket and especially people of color, we work those late shift jobs someone has to be the night janitor, someone has to be the security guard, someone who runs Waffle House at 3 in the morning. The gap was showing on the bridge to a better life. There is always something in the way. In this case, there is a fire on the bridge. You have emergency crews there are red and blue lights there to show it’s an emergency, but everything is stopped behind it, everything is log-jammed, there’s no way to get beyond it. So unless we start building something to help people get around it, everyone is just stuck on the road.
And the second piece..
I wanted to choose something where it’s a giant chasm, something that would not be surmountable in any basis. When you see something that’s such a grand chasm almost Grand Canyon size, no child can get through that you are basically trapping someone on this side. Without there being some systemic help in this area in order to create this road or bridge that anybody can pass over, you cannot get across.
The skies on the other side are very welcoming. I live in the mountains above LA. The idea is that you are coming from a pace where you are leaving behind the grind of capitalism and 40 hour workweeks to a place where, basically, you can be able to actually have a fruitful and fulfilling life.
