When a company of black Union soldiers tells L'il Dan that he is no longer a slave, he follows them, and uses his beloved drum to save them from attack.

Recounts the life of the twentieth-century African-American collage artist who used his southern childhood, New York City, jazz, and Paris to influence his bold and meaningful art.

"In November 1977, the 'New Yorker' published a feature-length biography of artist Romare Bearden by Calvin Tomkins as part of its Profiles series. The essay, titled 'Profiles: Putting Something Over Something Else' (using Bearden's words to describe the creative process), brought national focus to the artist, whose rise had seemed nearly meteoric since the late 1960s. The experience of the interview prompted Bearden to launch an autobiographical...