“I wasn't really interested in doing cartoons at that time, but I had one teacher, Miss McCoy, who used to call me and the other Black pupil in the school to the front of the room and present us to the class. She'd say. "These two, being Black, belong in a waste basket." Well, there was no way of defending oneself against that. So, I began to build up a kind of rage against her. There was no way that I could have gotten back at her because if I had, it would have been much more serious than it turned out. In the end, it turned out rather beneficial to me because I began doing cartoons of Miss McCoy in my notebooks.” RacismPolitical CartoonsPolitical Cartoonists Book:Why I Left America and Other Essays Source: Why I Left America and Other Essays
“I was right there in the middle of all of this action. I didn’t have to think up gags…The cartoons drew themselves…I was more surprised than anyone when Brother Bootsie became a Harlem household celebrity, not only among the colored proletariat be among the literati as well.” HarlemCartoonsHarlem RenaissancePolitical CartoonsPolitical Cartoonists Book:Why I Left America and Other Essays Source: Why I Left America and Other Essays
“To really dig Brother Bootsie, his trials and tribulations, you’d have to see Harlem from the sidewalk. Everyone in Harlem had trials and tribulations because everyone was colored. Or almost everyone…But being colored, even in an enlightened northern burg like New York, could be a drag.” RacismHarlem RenaissancePolitical CartoonsPolitical Cartoonists Book:Why I Left America and Other Essays Source: Why I Left America and Other Essays
“The art of what we might call, loosely, cartoons…[has been] as source of pleasure which has remained and sustained me.” ArtArtistsCartoonsPolitical CartoonsPolitical Cartoonists Book:Why I Left America and Other Essays Source: Why I Left America and Other Essays