Faith Ringgold: Artist & Activist

Faith Ringgold on fighting to get women and African-American artists into museums and the power of art.
Faith Ringgold is one of America's most gifted and generous visual storytellers. Ringgold is best known for the painted story quilts in which she draws on African American folklore tradition, often to dramatize-to humanize-institutional and national histories. Ringgold was born in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance and became a leader in the Black Arts movement and women's arts movement, organizing protests against major museums for excluding works of black and women artists. In 1971, Ringgold co-founded Where We At, a black women artists group. In 1991 Ringgold became an author, with the publication of Tar Beach, the winner of multiple awards and the first of more than a dozen books. A Professor Emerita of the University of California, San Diego, Faith Ringgold lives and works in Englewood, New Jersey.