Ringgold began her career as an artist and activist in the 1960s with large-scale paintings as seen in the American People Series (1963) which depicted the civil-rights struggle. She led protests and actions against museums, demanding equal gender and racial representation in exhibitions between 1968 and 1970. Most of her paintings from this period are political, depicting a critical review of the American dream glimpsed through the filter of race and gender relations. In 1972, she started to include quilted borders in her works inspired by thangka – Tibetan and Nepali paintings that she discovered while visiting the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Ringgold learned quilting from her mother, a dressmaker and fashion designer in Harlem. It has a long tradition in their family, originating from their enslaved ancestors who were trained to make quilts. Together, they pieced and sewed the first of her large quilts titled Echoes of Harlem (1980).  In 1983, she started adding handwritten text in what she called “story quilt”, focusing on narrative over style to convey personal or political messages. Her first story quilt tells the tale of the stereotyped Aunt Jemima in which the familiar advertising character is turned into a savvy entrepreneur.

From the 1980s on, Ringgold embraced the potential for social change by undermining racial and gender stereotypes through her depiction of black women. “You can’t sit around waiting for somebody else to say who you are. You need to write it, and paint it, and do it. That’s where the art comes from. It’s a visual image of who you are. That’s the power of being an artist.”

Faith Ringgold was born in Harlem, New York, in 1930, when the neighborhood’s renaissance was in full swing. Her original plan was to study liberal arts but the college she wished to enroll did not admit women. She completed a teaching degree in art instead, followed later by a master’s degree in art in 1959. In 1970, she began teaching college courses in her city’s public schools while painting her own works in her spare time. She moved into her home and studio in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1992, though not without difficulty.