Owning A Piece Of Black History

Everett Griener had hoped to die in the house that he’d built at the top of the hill, to finish up the yard work, tighten a few loose boards in the fence, and then close his eyes and walk into the light.  But at ninety-one, and still in relatively robust health, Everett accepted that he, like the morning fog that clung to the orchards in winter, would slowly fade.  There was no way around it.  He would have to sell his house on the hill.

And so he began to pack.

The McKendricks, it could be said, had more children than sense, at least by anyone who had ever sat next to them on a transcontinental flight.  It could also be said that when they arrived in Florida, they did so with little more than a thin dime.  A dime, and lots of children.  And the longer they stayed in Florida, the larger their family grew.  Their house, however, did not.  If anything, it seemed to shrink, and, Mrs. McKendrick, it could definitely be said, was going bonkers.  “We need to find a bigger home,” she sighed.

And so they began to look.

Back when Dr. Martin Luther King was organizing marches, and a black man in the south could expect to feel the sting of the word boy on a daily basis, Livingston Roberts sat along the side of Highway 27 selling his latest paintings.  The world had told Livingston, or Castro, as his friends called him, that he would be a picker.  That was what all the black men he knew did.  Looking downward, they picked beans or strawberries or onions.  They picked all day long, and then got up the next day and picked again.  The world told Livingston, picking is all I have to offer a young black man with little education in the south.  Livingston looked at the beauty around him, picked up a paint brush, and said, "I don't think so."

And so he began to paint.

Not everyone who decides that they will make their money by painting instead of picking succeeds.  But Livingston knew from the time he was little that he could do it.  His parents had a painting in their home, and for years he studied it.  Then one day he announced that he was sure he could reproduce it.  And he did.  He hadn’t had any lessons or summer camps or the guidance from a local artist.  He just did it.  And the more he painted the better he got.

Maybe he was successful because he had always been a keen observer, the kind who could look up into the sky and study the clouds for hours.  Or maybe it was because it was in his nature to be hungry and generous—hungry for knowledge about how to paint better and always generous to share what he had learned.  But from the moment he took to selling his paintings along the side of the highway, people stopped and bought his work.  He painted on gypsum board because it was cheaper than canvas, and what he painted was what he knew the tourists wanted to take home with them—pictures of Florida.

It was hot and humid, the day Everett Griener pulled his Cadillac to the side of the road and walked with his wife toward Livingston and his paintings.  Livingston smiled at the small, blonde man and his equally small wife.  He always smiled when a customer came to see his work.  Everett explained that the deep red in his painting of the tree had caught their eye, and Livingston explained it cost 35.00.  Everett peeled off some bills from the wad in his pocket.  He always had money in his pocket.  The world, after all, had told him he could become anything he wanted if he worked hard enough.  Having purchased the picture, the Greiners went on their way, back to their home on the hill, where they deposited the picture of the tree with the splashes of red into a closet.

And there it stayed for 45 years.

When the McKendricks, a family who apparently didn’t know how to prevent a pregnancy, offered to buy the house that Everett had built on the hill, he walked them through it.  Fading slowly, as his body had every intention of doing, meant that he needed to pare down his belongings.  And so as they walked through the house, he asked the couple if there was anything that they’d like to have.  Mrs. McKendrick, who was always worried about taking advantage of people’s kindness, at first declined the offer, until, that was, he opened a closet and she saw a splash of red. 

“Could we have this?” she asked, without even pulling the painting out to get a proper look.

Everett Griener nodded.  “Of course.  Bought that on the highway from a black gentleman.  Never did hang it up.”

In forty-five years a lot can happen, and in the time since Livingston had sold the painting to Everett, lots had.  The Highwaymen painters, as Livingston and his friends were called, had gained the respect of the art community.  At first, their work was discarded and was easy to find at Goodwill.  But, with time, people took another look at the works they created, and then they thought about the times in which they were created—these men who were told to pick, and painted instead.  Their pluck, entrepreneurial spirit, and contribution to Florida history, not to mention black history, all added something special that the art world likes to call provenance.

And the prices went up.

All the McKendricks knew was that they liked the splashes of red, and so they hung the painting in the house Everett Griener built on the hill.  And there it has stayed for the past ten years.  A lot can happen in ten years, and in the ten years since the McKendricks were given the painting a lot did.  They learned that the painting was a picture of a Poinciana tree, and that it was created by a man who sold his paintings on the side of the highway, a man who had been told to pick, but painted instead.  They learned that Livingston Roberts died in 2004, and that there is a statue of him in Fort Pierce, the town where he grew up.  And they learned there was more to the painting than the pretty red color.  They admired his brushwork, and his ability to create a brooding sky.  They also learned that people wanted to buy their painting, this slice of Florida history.  "No," said Mrs. McKendrick.  "Not even if we were down to our last dime. We’re keeping the painting.”

And so they have.

To learn more about The Highwaymen of Florida visit floridahighwaymenspaintings.com