Pressley became aware of racism at a young age when his father was shot by a white neighbor on their South Carolina farm. Shortly after, he moved with his brothers and sisters up to Ohio, and then struck out on his own in Harlem, where he started to carve and paint images that dealt with his experiences as a black man. He was fifty years old when King was assassinated, and he immediately responded with this emotionally intense image. Pressley died three years later.