American Way

In the 1950's there was a billboard posted, this billboard showed a white family and had the words "World's Highest Standard of Living". This promotes a fake idea that the perfect American family is white, white husband, white wife, white kids, and even a white dog. The family also is driving, in a nice car, through a suburban grassy area. Next to the family is, "There's no way like the American Way". This is a form of emphasize to the idea that the ideal American family is a middle class white family. The artist, Curtis Mayfield, is criticizing the American idea of the ideal family, his album cover makes it apparent that to him, the American dream doesn't exist for colored people.

Curtis Mayfield took a posted billboard and used it for his album cover to show his disagreement on the American Dream. The color contrast was made to show the people of color in line for what looks like a job or welfare or maybe even the American Dream itself; this is his representation of the actual America that is fully ignored, while what is on the billboard is what is actually false advertisement. Mayfield uses this to show that this is what America is really like, unemployed people looking for jobs and financial help. In addition to this, the people on the billboard are looking to the right while the people in the line are looking left, this is another form of contrast he’s using to show the foolishness of the American Dream. The false advertisement faces one way To seem as if they’re going towards the Dream while the colored people of United States stay in line facing one way to get the bare minimum to survive. The album cover also has a more realistic type of art on the billboard, this implies the “World’s Highest Standard Of Living” is completely false and even more so for colored people. The album cover has the words, “There’s no place like America Today” this is slightly different to the original billboard also but has a much more different meaning. The colored people holding bags, buckets, and baskets waiting for the minimum supplies to be able to survive on is a large indicator of the message Mayfield was emphasizing. Mayfield was attempting to get across the point that this is was America is really like, colored people struggling to survive and even more so to get to the American Dream. 

Mayfield is a strong believer in the idea that the American Dream does not exist for colored people. He makes this evident with the large amount of contrast in his album cover. Curtis Mayfield mocks the idea of there being an American Dream at all. He even mocks those who believe it by putting those who did in a line as they wait for the Dream that will never be for them because of their skin color.