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RESTRICTED: Phone interviews with Sylvester Wells, Lee Drake, and Ellis Buckner Jr. lack interviewee release forms and are closed until donor submits release forms.
Terms Governing Use:
Biographical/Historical:
The Highwaymen Heritage Trail was opened in 2016 to honor the original members of the Florida Highwaymen group of landscape painters. These 26 Hall of Fame Black artists hail from Fort Pierce and are famous for their artistic style and practice of selling their artwork out of their car trunks all along the Florida coast. The 26 Highwaymen are Curtis Arnett, Hezekiah Baker, Al Black, Ellis Buckner, George Buckner, Robert Butler, Mary Ann Carroll, Johnny Daniels, Willie Daniels, Rodney Demps, James Gibson, Alfred Hair, Isaac Knight, Robert L. Lewis, John Maynor, Roy McLendon, Alfonso Moran, Harold Newton, Lemuel Newton, Sam Newton, Livingston Roberts, Willie Regan, Carnell Smith, Charles Walker, Sylvester M. Wells, and Charles Wheeler.
The Highwaymen Heritage Trail is self-guided and includes ten stops: Seven Gables House, Fort Pierce's Visitor Center; A. E. Backus Studio, former studio of Highwaymen mentor, Albert "Bean" Backus; Pine Grove Cemetery, where Hair, Roberts, and Daniels are buried; Lincoln Park Academy, where art instructor Zanobia Jefferson taught many of the future Highwaymen; Dunbar House, home of Alfred and Doretha Hair; Eddie's Place, the bar Hair was killed in; Highwaymen Trail Obelisk, a mosaic of Highwaymen painting reproductions; Moore's Creek Linear Park, where markers describe the lives of Mary Ann Carroll, the only female Highwayman, and Harold Newton; and the Intermodal Transit Station, which bears each artist's name and a depiction of a Royal Poinciana tree, a common image in Highwaymen paintings.
Summary:
This series contains oral history tapes and in-person interview notes taken by Kristin Congdon and Betty Ford Smith of the surviving Florida Highwaymen and their friends and family members for the opening of the Highwaymen Heritage Trail. Also included are a small number of photographs and ephemera from the Heritage Trail.
Taped interviewees include Carnell Smith, Doretha Hair Truesdell, Zanobia Jefferson, Gertrude Walker, and Jimmy Stovall.
Paper interview notes are for interviews with the following people: Al Black; Doretha Hair on her late husband, Albert Hair; Mary Ann Carroll; Rodney Demps; Carnell Smith; Charles Walker; Zanobia Bracy Jefferson; Jimmy Stovall; Gertrude Walker on her late brother, Livingston Roberts; John Maynor; Roy McLendon; Willie Regan; and Isaac Knight.
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Folder listing available.
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Subject Access Fields:
Oral history Oral biography. Arts Florida Art Florida African Americans History 1877-1964. Florida African Americans History 1964- Florida
Electronic records (digital records). aat Machine-readable artifacts. aat Audio cassettes. aat Oral histories. aat
Fort Pierce (Fla.) St. Lucie County (Fla.)
for detailed listing.