"For the past two decades, African-American vernacular art of the South - noted for its powerful imagery and colorful palette - has attracted growing art-world interest.

This book and its accompanying exhibition, organized by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and Exhibitions International, present an extraordinary collection of contemporary work that serves as testimony to the continuing struggle for social justice, cultural identity, and spiritual and personal fulfillment experienced by Southern African Americans.".

"Drawn from the collection of Ronald and June Shelp, more than 100 paintings, drawings, and sculptures by twenty-seven self-taught black artists are represented. They range from the most celebrated practitioners - such as Thornton Dial Sr., Bessie Harvey, Lonnie Holley, Ronald Lockett, Mose Tolliver, and Purvis Young - to less known but no less fascinating figures such as Archie Byron, J. B. Murray, Lorenzo Scott, and Georgia and Henry Speller.

The largest group of works are by Dial and by members of his extended family - Arthur Dial, Richard Dial, Thornton Dial Jr., and Ronald Lockett - permitting a survey of the inter-connections within this Alabama dynasty of artists."--BOOK JACKET.