• Dr. Leo Twiggs (Claflin University, South Carolina State University) blended batik techniques with Southern iconography, becoming the first Black man to earn a doctorate in art education at the University of Georgia. His piece Lullaby captures the intimacy of Southern life, even as his work has been shown in Harlem, Rome, Dakar, and beyond.

• Hayward Oubre (Dillard University, Atlanta University, Winston-Salem State University) bridged painting, sculpture, and wirework. After serving in World War II, he built art departments at multiple HBCUs, training students like Selma Burke and leaving behind award-winning works such as Verily I Say Unto You.

• John Biggers (Hampton, Texas Southern University) began as a student of Viktor Lowenfield, Elizabeth Catlett, and Hale Woodruff before founding the art department at Texas Southern University. His murals—Web of Life, Songs of the Drinking Gourd, Family Unity—continue to speak powerfully of African diasporic resilience.

• James Newton (North Carolina Central University, University of Delaware) linked art with activism. His assemblage American Sixties reflects both his military service and the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s. Newton became a central figure in developing Black Studies curricula as well as mentoring students.

• Anderson Delano Macklin (Lincoln University, Penn State) not only painted—his Flowers and Paper Magnified a masterwork of texture and shadow—but also wrote A Biographical History of African American Artists, A–Z, preserving names and legacies that might otherwise have been forgotten.

• Freddie Styles (Morris Brown College, Atlanta) has lived through and painted Atlanta’s transformations for more than seventy years. His bold colors and collages embody the shifting landscapes of Georgia, both rural and urban.

• Gregory Ridley, Jr. (Fisk University, Tennessee State) studied with Aaron Douglas and went on to master painting and sculpture. His work and teaching career reflected a lifetime commitment to HBCU art departments.

• Jimmie Mosely (Florida A&M, Texas Southern, Maryland State) chronicled the Black diasporic experience in works like Johannesburg, while also building fine arts departments and serving as president of the National Conference of Artists.

• John Howard (Alcorn College, Atlanta University, University of Arkansas Pine Bluff) took his training under Hale Woodruff back to Arkansas, where he founded a program that nurtured rural Black artists for decades. His Arkansas Landscape roots HBCU artistry in place, community, and everyday life.

The Annuals flourished during a period of seismic change. As the Civil Rights Movement gave way to Black Power and the Black Arts Movement, many artists faced a choice: pursue mainstream recognition in integrated art markets, or remain grounded in Black institutions. Many did both. They exhibited at the Met and the Smithsonian while still teaching in classrooms at Southern HBCUs.

This dual commitment—to art and to education—defined the HBCU arts tradition. For these artists, teaching was not a distraction from art but an extension of it, a way of ensuring that the next generation had tools to create, critique, and imagine.

The Atlanta University Annuals may have ended in 1970, but their legacy is still alive. Today, the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum and other HBCU collections continue to preserve and exhibit the work of these artists. More importantly, they serve as living archives of a story that is still unfolding.

Every brushstroke, mural, and sculpture reminds us that the story of Black art in America is inseparable from the story of HBCUs. They were, and remain, the first patrons of African American art.