Sylvia (Laini) Abernathy was an artist and activist whose work played a vital role in Chicago’s Black Arts Movement. Collaborating frequently with her husband, photographer Fundi Abernathy, she helped shape the visual identity of Black cultural expression during the 1960s and ‘70s.

A graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology, Abernathy emerged as a designer at a time when few African Americans held creative authority in jazz album design. Commissioned by Delmark Records, she created album covers featuring bold Art Deco-inspired typography and striking color-blocked patterns, often incorporating Fundi’s photography.

In 1967, she joined the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), using design to promote art, literature, and music that championed Black pride and liberation. She played a key role in the layout of the Wall of Respect, a groundbreaking mural celebrating African American leaders. After adopting the Africanized name Laini, she designed the 1970 experimental photobook In Our Terribleness, pairing Amiri Baraka’s poetry with Fundi’s images.

Despite receiving little mainstream recognition, Abernathy’s work was pioneering, shaping the avant-garde visual language now inseparable from the era’s experimental jazz movement.