Rumors of War takes its inspiration from the statue of Confederate Army General James Ewell Brown “J.E.B.” Stuart created by Frederick Moynihan in 1907 and removed in 2020. As with the original sculpture, the rider strikes a heroic pose while sitting upon a muscular horse. However, in Wiley’s sculpture, the figure is a young African American dressed in urban streetwear. Proudly mounted on its large stone pedestal, the bronze sculpture commemorates African American youth lost to the social and political battles being waged throughout our nation.

In 2015, VMFA acquired Draper’s complete archive from his sister, Nell Draper-Winston. The archive consists of more than 6,600 items (representing more than 50,000 images), including photographs, negatives, contact sheets, slides, computer disks, audiovisual materials, and camera equipment, as well as valuable documents and publications, which include significant materials about the formation and early years of the Kamoinge Workshop. The archive inspired and informed the exhibition and catalog Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop. 

Two years later, in 2017, the museum was awarded a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund 29 months of work that transformed an extremely large, physical archive into a rich digital resource. An interdepartmental grant team was assembled from across the museum, including staff members of the Library/Archives, Imaging Resources, Curatorial, and Conservation departments.