In this panel, Lawrence depicts a Jim Crow South and harmful segregation laws that resulted from it. A black woman and a white woman stand at opposite sides of a river drinking from a fountain, the black woman sharing hers with a child. There is both the physical divide of the river coupled with the metaphorical divide of segregation. Additionally, Lawrence plays with the dichotomy of the archaic river landscape with the modern drinking fountain, a large point of contention in the Jim Crow South.

SKU: 64028
Creator: Jacob Lawrence
Date: between 1940 and 1941
Original Medium: Casein tempera on hardboard
Original Size: 12 x 18 in.
© 2016 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York