Before Alain Locke asked African Americans to create and portray the New Negro that would thrust them into the future, artists like William Edouard Scott were depicting blacks in new ways to break away from the subjugating images of the past.

After graduating from Manual Training High School in 1903, Scott spent a year studying drawing under Otto Stark.

During the years 1910–14, for example, he occasionally visited his former teacher at the Etaples art colony and while there painted local scenes such as the atmospheric Rainy Night at Étaples[6] and others under Tanner's influence.

After his formal education was complete, Scott received a Rosenwald Foundation grant and traveled to Haiti to paint those who had "maintained their African heritage".

By refusing to paint blacks as only slaves and laborers (as so many before him had), Scott hoped to "reverse the stereotypical perceptions of African Americans and eventually foster an understanding among the races".

[5] When he returned to Chicago, Scott continued with that goal as he portrayed "blacks on canvas in positions of prominence doing noble deeds" throughout the portraits and murals he created for the rest of his life.

[7][verification needed] One of his more famous paintings from this period is Night Turtle Fishing in Haiti, 1931, which depicts the work of four Haitian men out on the water.

[4] Much to that effect, Scott uses the sun in Night Turtle Fishing to center the work and draw the viewer's eye to the fishermen.

[7] At the behest of Haitian president Sténio Vincent, Scott participated in two exhibitions of his art in Haiti during which his work was well received.

It looks as if light were shining so directly on the subject that his skin appears lighter—but this is an interesting choice when Douglass's blackness was something that defined him and his actions throughout his life.

Instead, the key aspects of the painting are Douglass's deep stare and his furrowed brow, which speak much more of his respected status and position of responsibility than of his role as a black man.

As Scott chose to paint this prominent African-American man, he is obviously challenging the definition of "blackness" through his portrayal of a "New Negro" character.

His mentor Tanner did not push the issue of race in his work after realizing that "the European community could not be expected to understand or appreciate a theme that was distinctly American in nature".

Through his portraits and murals, in addition to depicting religious and political themes that had nothing to do with race, Scott's works began to cross the racial barrier and forge connections through art to the black community and the history there.