Bloch pictured a bare-chested, muscular Black man looking skyward with beams of light shining down on him. In an era when stereotypical depictions of Black Americans flooded visual culture, Bloch depicted his subject with dignity and empathy for Black Americans who faced racial discrimination. His lithograph conjured the comfort and resolve that many Black Americans found in Christianity and church communities in times of struggle.

Bloch drew inspiration to create this print from the Biblical Psalm 121, A Song of Ascents. The King James Version reads:
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.
The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.