Tampa International Airport honors Rosewood massacre victims - Tampa Bay Times

Tampa International Airport honors Rosewood massacre victims - Tampa Bay Times

TAMPA — Pedro Jermaine adjusted the rows of easels as travelers stopped with their rolling luggage to take in his paintings.

His largest painting, Hope Prevails, attracted the most attention in the corridor at Tampa International Airport between Terminals A and C.

The exhibit, commissioned by the airport for Black History Month, is a tribute to Rosewood, the Florida town of 300 black residents obliterated by a white mob nearly a century ago.

Related: RELATED: From the archives: the original story of the Rosewood Massacre

“I think three weeks into planning this … I said, you know, I think with this being Black History Month, we need to have something historic in there,” Jermaine said. “It’s good to have my pieces, but it’s important to have that history.”

Hope Prevails, the official tribute painting remembering Rosewood, by Pedro Jermaine, at the Black History Month art exhibit at Tampa International Airport. [DIRK SHADD | Tampa Bay Times]

Jermaine created the painting for the Real Rosewood Foundation Gala in 2018.

When Lizzie Robinson Jenkins, executive director of the Rosewood Foundation, saw it, she was silent.

“It was a long two minutes,” Jermaine said.

For Jenkins, the story of Rosewood is more than a horrific chapter in Florida’s history. It was family history. When she was 5, her mother sat her and her siblings down on their living room settee to tell them the story.

The massacre began on New Year’s Day in 1923, when false allegations of a black man attacking a white woman spread throughout the community. A white mob that grew brutally killed black men, set homes ablaze and forced women and children to leave. Jenkins’ aunt, a school teacher, was one of the women who rounded up survivors and helped them escape.

Related: RELATED: The last house in Rosewood

Jenkins’ mother kept the story of Rosewood alive through songs she’d make up, she recalled.

“The Cedar Key train conductor was told to pick up in Rosewood,” she sang. “Standing by the tracks with a lantern its young school teacher stood, waiting in desperation to carry out the plans, rounding up the hidden survivors, to board the midnight train.”

The story of Rosewood stayed with Jenkins as she went to college. Her mother implored her to keep the story alive, to make sure her aunt was not forgotten.

In 1982, the story came to light when a then-St. Petersburg Times reporter reported on a part of history that had seemingly been forgotten. In 1983, 60 Minutes aired a piece about it and in 1997, John Singleton made a dramatic film about it.

In 2003, Jenkins started the Real Rosewood Foundation, in an attempt to expand the search for lost survivors and descendants of Rosewood and to make sure history is not forgotten.

Related: RELATED: In search of lost cemeteries

“My goal for doing that is so that we can heal and become better people,” Jenkins said. “We need to know the story so it doesn’t repeat itself. My mother said there are other Rosewoods.”

When Jermaine was commissioned for the piece, he began researching magazine and news articles. There were no photos to reference. He began listening to Jenkins’ stories. He also began reading about slavery.

“I actually don’t see it as anything different,” he said. “I just see it as people facing torment and suffering, which is the same thing the slaves did. So you probably feel some of that in the painting based on the way some of the residents are dressed, trying to flee the massacre.”

Kelly Figley, who manages Tampa International Airport’s public arts program, said the airport’s permanent and temporary art collections are selected carefully.

The Black History Month art exhibit including a painting honoring Rosewood at Tampa International Airport. The large painting in the center is Hope Prevails, the official tribute painting remembering Rosewood, by Pedro Jermaine. [DIRK SHADD | Tampa Bay Times]

“It totally enhances the travel experience,” she said. “Any time we can provide or showcase art for our airport guests, we try to do that.”

Jermaine, who started as a premed student before finding his calling, had his first work of art showcased at St. Petersburg’s The Studio@620 in 2011. He said he still hasn’t fully processed the number of people who will see this exhibit.

Transition, oil on canvas by by Pedro Jermaine, is one of the paintings on display in the Black History Month art exhibit at the SkyConnect entrance to the main terminal at Tampa International Airport on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020 in Tampa. [DIRK SHADD | Tampa Bay Times]

He’s glad the piece has historic value, he said.

“Our culture and stories and histories need to be shared, because it’s all of our history,” he said. “I always see art as the foreground. I want it to bring hope and healing, especially now.”

The exhibit will remain on display through the month of February.

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2020-02-06 14:36:00Z
https://www.tampabay.com/news/hillsborough/2020/02/06/tampa-international-airport-honors-rosewood-through-art-display/
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