 This is also the same year his mother began sending him to Mississippi twice a year to his aunts, Hasty Baines and Harriet Baines, where he would learn about his heritage and African American Southern folklore - these themes would heavily influence his art for the rest of his career as an artist.An early activist, as a teenager, he volunteered his talents and became the house artist at the National Negro Congress in Chicago.White won a grant during the seventh grade to attend Saturday art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago.