Lawrence's style fueled the ‘Harlem Renaissance,’ featuring unique style of bright colors, sharp lines and abstract shapes that were inspired by the streets of Harlem and his experiences in the neighborhood. In 1942, The Phillips Memorial Gallery in Washington D.C. and the National Museum of Modern Art in New York purchased the 60-panel-series, making Lawrence one of the first African Americans to be showcased in a major museum. At the age of twenty-four, Lawrence became the first African American artist to be represented by a downtown "mainstream" gallery.

During his lifetime, Jacob Lawrence received numerous awards and honors, including the National Medal of Arts (1990), the NAACP Annual Great Black Artists Award (1988), and the Spingarn Medal (1970). His work has been the subject of several major retrospectives that have traveled nationally, originating in 1986 at the Seattle Art Museum, in 1974 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and in 1960 at the Brooklyn Museum.

In 1938, Lawrence had his first solo exhibition at the Harlem YMCA and started working in the easel painting division of the WPA Federal Art Project. His early series told the stories of Toussaint L’Ouverture (1938), who led the struggle for Haiti’s independence, Frederick Douglass (1939), the great abolitionist and statesman, and Harriet Tubman (completed 1940), the celebrated conductor of the Underground Railroad.

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