Ontario artist paints a story of his grandfather’s painful ordeals
When it comes to his genealogy, Jerry Weems of Ontario had embraced a rather unusual method to tell his family story.
As a painter, Weems has used his canvases to interpret the most dramatic events of his family’s past. That was the perceived death and then shocking reappearance of his grandfather, Frank Weems, who was a victim of Jim Crow violence near his Arkansas home in 1936.
Jerry Weems first read of his grandfather’s ordeal in a book by Michael K. Honey, “Sharecropper’s Troubadour: John L. Handcox, the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union and the African American Song Tradition.”
“I had never heard anything about him even from my family until I read his story in the ‘Troubadour.’ It motivated me to tell his ordeals through my artwork,” he said.
He has completed seven canvases illustrating the beating and disappearance of his grandfather, an African American sharecropper and labor leader, and its effect on his wife and eight children. The story from the Great Depression long been forgotten until his grandson decided to bring it to light.
Jerry Weems never met his grandfather, though he spent some of his own youth working on his family’s sharecropping farm in Mississippi. He believes that exhausting experience in the fields helps him interpret and honor his grandfather’s story.
“In the face of pervasive peril, residing in a region where any deviation from the unwritten ‘Black Codes’ could result in fatal consequences, my grandfather exhibited exceptional courage,” he said. “Balancing the responsibilities of a large family, he chose to jeopardize his own well-being for the pursuit of justice.”
Frank Weems was not a very popular fellow in his hometown of Earle, Arkansas, in June 1936, when the economy was at its worst for both planters and sharecroppers. When he was not working in the fields, he was an organizer for the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union.
“His mission: to unite individuals across racial lines, mobilizing them to protest against the inequitable labor practices,” Weems said. “Their collective plea for fair compensation, a mere one dollar and fifty cents per day, resonates as a testament to his unwavering commitment to principles of fairness and equity.”
While organizing a strike by cottonpickers outside of Earle, he and his associates were set upon by five carloads of men armed with guns and clubs. When the assailants finally departed, Weems was left on the pavement badly beaten and apparently dead. When help arrived, he had disappeared.
Other labor leaders feared his body had been dumped into a nearby creek, but no trace of him was found. The incident quickly became a cause célèbre in the region, led by fellow labor workers who demanded an investigation and justice for Weems. The rallying cry by his peers for the next few months was “Where is Frank Weems?”
His disappearance briefly got national attention. Norman Thomas, Socialist candidate for president, spoke out in September 1936, demanding justice for Weems’ beating, decrying “the shadow of the plantation and of chattel slavery that hangs over us.”
The incident also spawned a folk song,
“The Man Frank Weems,” written by Handcox. The refrain from the song: “Now I want somebody to tell me, tell me, and tell me right. Yes, I want somebody to tell me where is the man Frank Weems.”
(On Youtube, you can hear that song, played by Jeremy Wright on piano and harmonica, at youtube.com/ watch?v=h8mehdmj_ Mk)
After the attack, police told newspapers that they believed Weems wasn’t dead but just hiding out, which later turned out to be correct. But in his absence, his wife Vera and eight kids lost their home and were forced to camp out along local roads. Later they moved to a camp in Mississippi funded by the labor union.
Suddenly, on May 21, 1937, Frank Weems reappeared at an attorney’s office in Chicago. He said he had hidden for almost a year, fearful of planters who might finish the job of killing him. Legal action against those who beat him was threatened by Weems and his supporters but it never went forward.
Jerry Weems said the family never returned to Arkansas. His grandfather died in Chicago in 1960 and his grandmother, whom he did meet briefly as a child, died in Memphis in 1972.
His first painting “Where is Frank Weems?” shows a massive number of people being beaten during a demonstration. This summer, that work was displayed in a gallery in St. Louis.
A second work shows his grandfather hiding in the swamp while people searched for him. A third told of organizing a march while a fourth is a compendium of news articles about Weems during the time he was missing. The final three illustrate the eviction of sharecroppers, his family finding shelter at the Hill House and finally, his family being evicted.
Weems’ cousin, Carrie Mae Weems, a professional photographer in Oregon, has produced videos and photographs that also illustrate her grandfather’s grim story. She has shown those works in galleries in Mississippi and New York.
“What fills me with immense pride is the realization that my grandfather exhibited such bravery nearly three decades prior to the Civil Rights Movement,” Jerry Weems said.
“He fearlessly organized both Black and White communities, laying the groundwork for a collective stand against injustice.”
Joe Blackstock writes on Inland Empire history. He can be reached at joe. blackstock@gmail.com or Twitter @Joeblackstock. Check out some of our columns of the past at Inland Empire Stories on Facebook at www. facebook.com/iehistory.