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Sandra Wills Hannon
From Sharecropper’s Daughter to the White House:
Florida Highwaymen Artist to Gift Painting to First Lady
Washington, DC---May 18, 2011--- Mary Ann Carroll, the only woman in the famed group of African American artists known as the Florida Highwaymen, will proudly present one of her paintings to Michelle Obama at the First Lady’s Annual Luncheon at the Congressional Club in Washington on Wednesday, May 18. Born in Georgia in 1940 to sharecroppers, Ms. Carroll, who at 70, continues to paint, will meet the First Lady. It is a long way from the days when the mother of seven made a living loading her paintings in her 1964 Buick Electra and travelling throughout the state of Florida to sell her paintings.
The First Lady’s Luncheon is the most prestigious affair of the year by the Congressional Club. In 1912, the Club held a Breakfast, in honor of the wife of the President of the United States. The Breakfast has now become the First Lady's Luncheon and has been held almost every year since its inception.
In addition, Ms. Carroll will be a guest lecturer at Howard University this summer, when the university will host an exhibit of paintings by the Highwaymen.
The history of Florida’s Highwaymen is a story that now is told through a few of the surviving artists who pioneered an incredible and largely unknown National art movement.
The Highwaymen, a group of 26 African-Americans, broke convention to paint beautiful iconic landscapes. Originating in the mid-50s – an era marked by racism, poverty and brutality – the self-taught entrepreneurs mentored each other while they scavenged for basic materials like wallboard for canvasses, and crown molding for frames. Galleries shunned their work, so they peddled their art from car trunks along area roadways, hence their name. Their art freed them from work in citrus groves and created a body of work that has become not only a timeless collection of a natural environment, but a symbol of determination and belief in oneself.
From Sharecropper’s daughter to the White House, 1 of 2
From Sharecropper’s daughter to the White House, 2 of 2
In selling art on the road, Ms. Carroll braved the challenges that came with a Black woman travelling through a segregated south. “I went to Okeechobee,” she recalled of one instance. The guys didn’t go because there was a lot of what you call “redneck” thinking and this kind of stuff. But I was going where I was going and that was it. I traveled up and down the state of Florida by myself. I went over across ditches and canals. And I’m afraid of water.”
“It was segregation. Blacks had one water fountain, whites had another. At restaurants you had to go in the back door. Blacks were disrespected,” she said.
Though she supplemented her income as an artist with a variety of jobs including carpentry and music, the art was her main source of income. “I could not work as a maid and make enough for my family. This was the best life that any of us could live, painting and enjoying the labor. We were able to keep shelter over our heads and feed children and do some of the good things in life.”
The surviving Highwaymen, now in their 70s, are an important chapter in America’s culture and history. Their self-determination in the face of adversity remains a story of perseverance, inspiration and creativity.
Bob Beatty, in his book Florida’s Highwaymen: Legendary Landscapes, writes: “As African Americans in the Jim Crow South, [theirs] is a story of triumph in the face of opposition … [a story] of a loose collective of largely self-taught, self-supporting and self-motivated African American artists rising from obscurity to national renown [and creating] a piece of history…”
Today, Ms. Carroll is pastor of the Foundation Revival Center in Fort Pierce, Fla. She is also an accomplished musician. She still paints and exhibits her work widely.
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