Howardena Pindell

“As a child in the 1940s, Howardena and her family would drive from Philadelphia to her grandmother’s home in Hamilton, Ohio, near the border of Kentucky. Most motels would not accept blacks. Her father would bring a stove along so that they could cook their meals in the woods.

It was on one of these trips that Howardena had an early experience with segregation and racism. It involved an outing to a local food stand in the southern Ohio- northern Kentucky area. Howardena asked her father why the large glass root beer mugs they were given had prominent red circles painted at the bottom. Her father then explained to her that in restaurants and food stands people of color were given separate utensils and that the red circles were used to distinguish ‘their’ mugs from the others. This left an indelible mark on Howardena, as years later, these red marks and dots appear in many of her current works.”