Waitin’ for the One Day is a dynamic digital collage that
fuses historical text, striking portraiture, and layered
textures to interrogate the Black experience in America.
Five Black male figures appear in motion, their
defensive bodies rendered in a blend of photographic
realism and painterly abstraction. Each is uniquely
stylized—some with high-contrast hues and expressive
textures—incorporating references such as a
19th-century runaway slave poster and the back of a
U.S. quarter to highlight the foundational role of Black
labor in America’s economic infrastructure.

The background features excerpts from Mary Church
Terrell’s satirical essay “Aunt Dinah and Dilsey on
Civilizing White Folks,” which critiques the hypocrisy of
white society. By embedding Church Terrell’s reflections
on race and social justice, the artist connects past
struggles to contemporary movements, emphasizing the
persistence of systemic racial inequities. McClinton’s
distortions and color inversions deepen this critique,
disrupting traditional portraiture by blending past and
present, satire and seriousness.