To Be Free (Know the Past and Prepare for the Future)

Barbara Jones-Hogu was an artist, activist, and educator. She was a member of the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), formed in 1967, and a founding member of the Coalition of Black Revolutionary Artists (COBRA), later renamed the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (AFRICOBRA). Jones-Hogu’s screen print “To Be Free (Know the Past and Prepare for the Future)” exemplifies several thematic and aesthetic characteristics of AFRICOBRA art, including bright “cool ade” colors, disappearing and reappearing contours, syncopated rhythms, written statements within the picture plane, and positive images of Black people and their experiences. As the text embedded in the composition indicates, “To Be Free” connects past, present, and future by featuring family groups of Black women and children dressed in either American or African styles of clothing. Representing African roots, the sun-symbol radiates thick concentric circles of light, the contours of which traverse the forms of the women and children and delineate shifts to different colors at each juncture.