[1][2] She was an important figure in Chicago's Black arts movement, often working in collaboration with her husband, photographer Fundi (Billy) Abernathy.
Abernathy's designs typically worked with Art Deco-inspired typefaces and vibrant color block patterns mirroring the deconstructive, forward-thinking nature of the music.
She was working during a time when few African-Americans held positions of creative authority on the visual side of the predominantly Black jazz movement -- jazz album design, popularized by designers such as Paul Bacon and Reid Miles, made use of bold abstract forms and negative space to subvert the racist stereotypes associated with black music in previous decades.
[7] After changing her name to the Africanized Laini, she designed the 1970 experimental photo book “In Our Terribleness (Some Elements and Meaning in Black Style)” featuring poetry by Amiri Baraka and images by her husband, Fundi.
She received little mainstream recognition, although her work helped to pioneer the avant-garde visual aesthetic now inseparably linked with 1960s experimental jazz music.