[4] His book A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech that Inspired a Nation (2019), illustrated by Pinkney and written by Barry Wittenstein, won the Orbis Pictus Award for 2020.

[11] During his early teens, Pinkney worked at a local newspaper stand, where he would pass the time by drawing city life.

[10] Pinkney's talent caught the eye of customer and cartoonist John Liney, who worked on the Henry comic strips.

[14][15] Pinkney only attended the Philadelphia College of Art for a few years, leaving to start a family with wife Gloria.

[13] Pinkney later worked at Barker-Black Studio, where he illustrated his first picture book in collaboration with Joyce Cooper Arkhurst called, The Adventures of Spider: West African Folk Tales (1964).

[19] During the 1980s Pinkney began to receive additional recognition for his work, including a Coretta Scott King Award for his collaboration with author Patricia McKissack on Mirandy and Brother Wind (1989).

[24] Pinkney's work was included in the 2015 exhibition We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s at the Woodmere Art Museum.

[34] Pinkney has received many awards for his work as an illustrator over the years and has been recognized by multiple organizations for his contributions as an artist.

[176] Pinkney completed a total of eleven portraits for the series, and his designs featured images of Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., Benjamin Banneker, Whitney Young, Jackie Robinson, Scott Joplin, Carter Woodson, Mary McLeod Bethune and Sojourner Truth.