Sarah Bracey White recognizes the natural beauty of cotton fields while acknowledging the complicated history they represent. As a Black girl growing up in Sumter, South Carolina, during the latter years of Jim Crow, she was well aware of the cotton fields that spread beyond the town's boundaries.
Her mother, who taught in segregated public schools, often needed extra money to raise her five children. “After school, my two older sisters would sometimes pick cotton to make money for my mother,” says White, a noted memoirist, arts consultant, and former librarian who now lives in New York's Westchester County. “When I was old enough to do so, my mother said, ‘No, you're not picking cotton.’ Because I'm familiar with cotton fields, the moment I saw this painting, I was struck.”…
