A granddaughter of Michigan Supreme Court Justice Benjamin F. Graves, Reyneau's sitters included Mary McLeod Bethune, George Washington Carver, Joe Louis, and Thurgood Marshall.

[7] When she returned to the United States, Reyneau was horrified by the treatment of African Americans, finding it akin to German fascism.

The Smithsonian connected Reyneau with the Harmon Foundation, which had been supporting African American art and artists for at least two decades.

"[5] As the show traveled throughout the U.S. in the 1940s, including the Brooklyn Museum, Reyneau added more paintings to the collection, so that it totaled 50 by 1954[5] (Waring passed away in 1948).

The reviewer for the Black newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier, however, wrote "Directors of museums that showed the paintings advanced the opinion that in some communities a noticeable lessening of racial tensions took place following the art display.

"[5] With the abolishing of legal segregation in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the Harmon Foundation ended with tour.