Rembert’s wife, Patsy, saw his art's power and worth clearly: 'Nobody tells their life story on leather.' In 2000, curator Jock Reynolds gave Rembert a show at the Yale University Art Gallery, and national exhibitions followed as well as two documentaries on his life and work. In prison, he learned how to tool and dye leather, and at 51 was compelled 'to do pictures of what was done to me.” His visceral works illustrate his days picking cotton, dancing in juke joints, enduring the brutality of the chain gang, and reckoning with the 'everyday lie' of White supremacy. Rembert survived the grueling hard labor and mental cruelty of a chain gang, and he was released after serving seven years. Hung by his feet in a tree, 'bleeding like a hog,” he survived being 'almost lynched.” With new charges from having escaped and stolen the sheriff’s gun, he was given a 27-year term in state prison.

Soon arrested and stuck in jail for nearly two years awaiting trial, he escaped, only to be caught that night by a violent White mob.

In the 1960s, he participated in the civil rights movement, and, after one violent crackdown at a protest, stole a car to flee two White men chasing him with shotguns. Rembert (1945-2021) was raised by a great aunt in rural Georgia, and he spent his childhood working with her in the cotton fields. The late Black artist tells his life story via his words and powerful works of visual art.

Chasing me to my grave book