Author, artist chronicle life of civil rights leader

Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

How many times and in how many ways can the story about the life of U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) be told?

Innumerable articles, broadcast interviews, documentaries, history books and, most recently, Lewis' own best-selling autobiography have spread the tales of the civil rights leader's life: how he preached to chickens as a boy, caused an uproar at the 1963 March on Washington and was clubbed nearly to death on a bridge in Selma, Ala., in 1965.

But two more ventures --- a children's book and a traveling art exhibit --- now offer a fresh retelling of Lewis' life as one of the "Big Six" civil rights leaders.

The book and exhibit come with an eerie tale all their own.

The book, "John Lewis in the Lead," co-written by Jim Haskins and Kathleen Benson, recently hit bookstore shelves. And the art exhibit, with more than 20 paintings and 40 drawings, just closed at Parish Gallery in Washington's tony Georgetown neighborhood. It's now headed for the Mason Murer Gallery in Atlanta, where it opens Feb. 23.

At the heart of both projects is Benny Andrews, one of 10 children born to sharecropper parents in Madison, who went on to acclaim as a New York-based artist. Some of Andrews' vivid and whimsical paintings from the exhibit --- depicting episodes in Lewis' life --- were used to illustrate the book.

But Andrews never saw his last exhibit.

And Haskins never saw his book published.

Both men died in the past 18 months. The telling of Lewis' life was the last project for both, people involved in the projects said.

Haskins, 63, the author of more than 100 books for children and adults that focus largely on African-American history and achievement, died in 2005 from complications from emphysema. Andrews, 75, died of cancer in November, just days before his last exhibit opened.

Norm Parish, owner of the Georgetown gallery that showed the exhibit, and Mark Karelson, director of the Mason Murer Gallery, said the deaths of Haskins and Andrews lent a funereal feel to the exhibit and book, which are featured together at both galleries.

For the exhibit at Parish's gallery, Andrews insisted that his painting of a young black man's funeral adorn the cover of the invitation.

"People said, 'Benny must have known,' " Parish said.

What Andrews knew was that he was dying of cancer.

When friends learned of his illness, Andrews' impassioned mission to exhibit the Lewis paintings as quickly as possible began to make sense.

Andrews knew the book would be out around October, and last summer when he was visiting the Murer gallery during Atlanta's annual National Black Arts Festival, he ran into Parish, a longtime friend, and proposed that the paintings be exhibited. Soon.

Parish was already booking shows for 2008. Things just don't move that fast in the gallery business. But Andrews persisted and, when Parish said he had a two-week vacancy in November, Andrews jumped at it.

It was only about half the time an exhibit normally runs and the time to prepare for it was short. But Parish agreed.

There were 23 paintings, done in oil and a montage of fabrics and fibers, ranging in price from $20,000 to $50,000 each.

Lewis was admiring one of them on opening night at the Parish Gallery when Parish asked him if he was going to buy it. Lewis looked at the price again and told Parish: "I'd have to mortgage my house."

Parish sold at least two of the paintings. Demand would have been higher if the subject matter weren't so brutal, Parish said. Though a depiction of a young boy feeding chickens is a peaceful, pastoral scene, others in Andrews' frank folk style include police attacking civil rights marchers and protesters holding signs.

"People said, 'We know the story. We'd like to see it in a museum, but we don't want to live with it,' " Parish said. "It's too painful."

Debbie Roberson of Washington was strolling by the gallery one afternoon when Andrews' paintings caught her eye.

"I'm overwhelmed," she said as she toured the exhibit. "This is truly, truly wonderful."

Karelson, director of the Murer gallery, is planning several large events around the opening of the Andrews/Lewis exhibit in February.

"John Lewis is one of my all-time heroes," Karelson said.

Two days before the Feb. 23 opening, 600 Atlanta middle school students have been invited to tour the exhibit and meet Lewis. They'll each get a free copy of the book.

Atlanta's Museum of Contemporary Art will show other works by Andrews in February.