In January of 1970, David C. Driskell was at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, for a brief teaching engagement. This trip, and a return to Africa in the fall of 1972 on a State Department sponsored lecture tour, bolstered Driskell's knowledge of African art and had a powerful influence on his artwork for the first part of the decade. As the decade progressed, his relationship with the state of Maine also deepened. In spring 1973, Driskell taught at Bowdoin College in Brunswick and Bates College in Lewiston. He also taught printmaking at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle in 1975 and was a visiting artist at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1976.
In the mid-1970s, Driskell's already long career as a respected curator of African American art reached new heights. In 1975, Amistad II: Afro-American Art opened at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., where Driskell was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Art. The exhibition traveled to twenty states. Two Centuries of Black American Art opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in September 1976 and traveled through August 1977, with stops at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Ga., the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in Texas; and the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Both exhibitions highlighted the contributions of African American artists during the bicentennial year of 1976.
In January of 1977, Driskell joined the faculty of the Department of Art at the University of Maryland, College Park. In the fall of the following year, he was appointed department chair. He would remain at the University of Maryland until his retirement in 1998.
