In his late teens, Purvis Young spent time in a Florida prison, where he read about the Black Arts Movement in Chicago and artistic reactions against the Vietnam War. Inspired by art’s capacity for social change, he began to draw. In the late 1960s, Young’s Miami neighborhood, Overtown, rapidly declined due to the construction of an interstate through its center. He sought sanctuary in Goodbread Alley, a street where he installed hundreds of mural paintings that recorded both the harsh realities of urban life, as well as his belief in divine intervention.

"Angels and Their Horses" depicts two of Young’s favorite subjects—God’s heavenly messengers and their black “freedom horses,” symbols of salvation and liberation. Young perceived organized religion as “part of the system,” and turned instead to God and his angels directly—both in the earthly and the heavenly realms: “God sends angels to try to clear up some of this trouble on Earth. I don’t listen to the Man, I look up to heaven.”