Two opponents, with furrowed brows and folded arms, convey the cerebral nature of chess, a game that fascinated Jacob Lawrence. The white pieces on the left of the board have advanced further than the black pieces on the right, an uneven playing field that reflects political circumstances at the time of the painting. Chess Players was created in 1954, the year of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark case during the Civil Rights Movement in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional. Lawrence’s vibrant paintings often reflect political and social concerns of their times, addressing universal themes of community, justice, discrimination, and human dignity.