A small sheet of red construction paper, among the first colored paper provided to Murray, induced him to conceive a highly atypical and perhaps unique narrative. Unable to use red pigment (because of the color of the paper) to denote malevolent forces, but compelled to pit good against evil, Murray used his two otherworldly colors, black and white, in a literal sense to create a face-to-face confrontation between what probably are African Americans and Ku Klux Klansmen. (The Klan had been an active threat to blacks in central Georgia during Murray’s lifetime.) A small cross, circumferential patches of yellow, and a vertical arrangement of blue dots all serve to provide protection for the endangered black figures.
