The Noah Purifoy Foundation

Born in 1917 at the height of Jim Crow, in Snow Hill Alabama, a town that has no national census data; Noah Purifoy sought out higher education, received a B.A. degree, taught industrial arts in high school, and then enlisted in the Navy during WWII as a Sea Bee. After the war he returned to university for a graduate degree in Social Work; eventually, plying his training in Los Angeles. Encumbered by race and social quicksand, Noah’s curiosity and determination are worthy, in and of itself, of multiple volumes. Disillusioned with “social work,” Noah left work one day and enrolled in Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts) becoming its first African American student, and received a BFA, his third degree.