This painting by Emanuel Leutze, done in 1851, is an example of a history painting. George Washington is depicted as the hero of this turning point in the American Revolutionary War, but Leutze takes liberty with the details: the stars and stripes flag was not used until 1777.

The heroic figures of Emanuel Leutze’s painting are replaced by racist Black stereotypes to confront history, the role of the artist, and the role of the viewer. Colescott calls out the selective representations of Black people as told by a white establishment.

Some historians understand the figures in this painting as white individuals in Blackface. As early as the Second Enforcement Act of 1871, antidiscrimination legislation made racist imagery a punishable offense; however, Blackface was still seen as humorous by white audiences. Colescott's sensational painting makes clear that the creation of racist stereotypes, such as the ones we see here, was a tool of the white majority to oppress people of color.

George Washington Carver (1860s–1943) was born into slavery and became an innovative agricultural scientist. His work solved the problem of overproduction of Southern fields to help struggling sharecroppers in the South, many of them former slaves. Colescott re-creates Emanuel Leutze's painting with an all-Black cast to tell a story of Black American achievements that are often left out of history.