Aaron Douglas made this finished study for the first of five murals intended for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library. The murals depict the history of African Americans, from their origins in Africa to life in America in the 1930s. Blending Egyptian figures in profile and West African masks with cubism and art deco, Douglas utilized a hybrid Western-African aesthetic that became a hallmark of the Harlem Renaissance.