Painting is one of the most expressive forms of art. With many different colors, ideas, and objects, we can actually create splendor in its purest form.

I’m painting. I learned something in Ranburne. Population 473. While it might not be exactly the place where most people would consider taking a trip, one of my friends and I decided to go to a haunted house in the small town. So we set off on our trip with no expectations other than to receive a few laughs and to have a good time. There’s a sign in Roanoke, the city where I live that states the fact that Ranburne is forty five miles. Forty five miles isn’t far geographically, but the stretch of highway between Roanoke and Ranburne changed my outlook on life.

There is a picture that I want to paint, but it is not clear right now.  The trip was fast, and there are no distinguishing landmarks along the way, unless you count the sparse livestock along the route. Upon entering the town, we noticed that the town itself was not much different than the highway that we traveled to get there. A school near a forbidding cemetery, a gas station, and a small locally owned grocery store were the only distinctive trademarks. Our purpose in the town was simple: it was Halloween, and we wanted an experience that we would never forget. Boy, did we get it. We traveled to the outskirts of the small town to a farm owned by a family, which they had turned into a haunted house.

I got it! I will paint a sky full of beautiful white clouds, with the sun as a focus. We traveled through the haunted house, engaged by the detail and the features of the house. We returned to the car amazed, but slightly frazzled. After realizing that we needed gas, we stopped by the only gas station in town. Although we had passed by the station on the way in, we did not realize how grimy and eerie the place looked. The building was diminutive, no bigger than a small house, and it had one working pump outside of it.  The façade of the building was vinyl siding, dirty and scarred with age.

My white paint is not a clean as I thought it was. In small towns in the South, many buildings are either brick or have vinyl siding – not much variety. There hung a sign over the door that had some letters on it, but I couldn’t make out what they were.  Outside of the station sat about four pick up trucks that looked like they had not been driven in years, but nonetheless, took up all the parking space.  There was not much light on the exterior of the building, and the lights inside looked dim as well. I decided to buy a drink, so I got out of the car and approached the store. As I advanced towards the door, a pungent smell caught my attention. I couldn’t make out what it was at the time, but it whatever it was it made my stomach turn. As I walked into the store, I noticed that everyone inside was not like me in any way. My skin was brown. Theres was red. I was a teenager. They were all over 30. I was in a pretty good mood. When they saw me, it looked like they had seen a ghost.

As I continue to paint, my sky becomes darker, and I decide to make the clouds gray with addition of black paint, adding the sense of a foreboding storm. I hurriedly took a drink from the case, and stood in line. The whole time I was inside of the store, the other customers whispered, and whatever they were talking about seemed serious because the more they talked, they angrier they seemed to get. It is important to mention that not once did I ever look any of these people in the face. If you asked me right now what any of them looked like, I can tell you exactly what they had on, how they sounded, even the attitude that permeated the air, but not how they look. They all eventually went outside, so I went to checkout.

My painting is almost finished now…I decide to add rain and a streak of lightening. The lady at the counter was very rude, taking my money and sliding it back on the counter. I didn’t realize it at that moment, but I had witnessed my first real moment of blatant racism. I was naïve about the whole situation, and was completely startled when it finally dawned on me that some people are as vicious and dim as the residents of Ranburne, who remain faceless to me. I’ve never gone back to Ranburne, and I don’t plan on ever going back, but I learned a vital lesson there, and I will never forget it. For me, racial discrimination was learned in Ranburne, Alabama.

I add the finishing touches to my painting, which include a teenager walking in the rain. I think back, and my painting progressed from a bright, sunny day to a storm. My trip started off as a harmless attempt to have fun, but by the end of the trip I had been ‘struck by lightening in a sense. The Civil Rights Movement in the South was like a hurricane, and in traveling to Ranburne, I experienced my first storm.

Marcus Ware