Note
Taking the traditionally decorous Sunday stroll, Hale Woodruff's churchgoers promenade in their finest. Comprising the core of their small community, the enliven their impoverished main street, embodying the power of the church as a source of comfort and salvation. Woodruff seizes this occasion to illustrate African-American vitality during a historically oppressive era. (Elnora, Inc. c/o E.T. Williams, Owner of Hale Woodruff Estate)
Printed posthumously in 1996 by Bob Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop in New York. After studying the original prints made over half a century ago, the master printer rendered the edition from Woodruff's own linoleum blocks. After the blocks were officially presented to the Schonburg Center for Research in Black Culture in 1996. Blackburn ceremoniously "crossed out" one of the blocks by etching a mark across it. This cancelling is the printmaker's gesture to preserve the artist's integrity and his own dedication to high-quality reprinting. According to the print curator at the Whitney Museum at the time, these prints were better than the originals and also included some he had never seen. (Elnora, Inc. c/o E.T. Williams, Owner of Hale Woodruff Estate)