On this day, September 7, 1917, artist and sometime illustrator Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. As a young boy, his mother enrolled him in classes at an arts and crafts settlement house in Harlem. He later studied at the Harlem Community Art Center and the American Artists School. In 1941 his images of African American migration were published in an issue of Fortune magazine. And later in that decade Lawrence created cover illustrations for the magazine.

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