Chelsea resident’s work on display at Civil Rights Institute

In 1971, John Solomon Sandridge was one of the most sought after billboard painters in the Southeast.

The hours of his workday were stretched across 48 feet of empty space, which he would turn from a dull white to stunning advertisements. Though owned by a display company, his billboards were roadside highlights as much as they were extensions of his creativity. And eventually they caught the attention of a national brand.

While working one afternoon, Sandridge had visitors. Clad in suits, they had driven from Atlanta to just to meet him. They took his manager out to lunch and stressed their visit and its purpose be kept a secret. After all, the country was only a few years removed from the Voting Rights Act, and Sandridge was the company’s only black employee.

What would people say if they knew Coca-Cola had come calling?

“At that time, racial tension was very high,” Sandridge said. “A black person just wouldn’t get that kind or recognition. So, they gave me the job in secrecy.”

Supportive roots

Sandridge, now 63, has spent much of his life floating within an artistic current. Even today as he walks the land around his Chelsea home, his mind wanders to his next creation and what changes it might bring to the world. But while he’s enjoyed success, it wasn’t always that way.

He grew up in a three-room home in the Gadsden area, a space he shared with both parents and seven siblings. The family lived in poverty, but Sandridge’s spirit always found a way around their limited resources. 

“I first started drawing at the age of 4,” he said. “I drew a stick person in the family Bible. I think my mother was OK with it.”

Sandridge said he could always count on his mother for support. She made sure to have a No. 2 pencil sharpened and available, and though notebook paper was a rarity, she was always able to find him an envelope or other scraps.

At 15, Sandridge decided his next step in life was to become a cartoonist. Familiar with a Montgomery-based publication named Alabama Weekly, he sketched four cartoons and sent them in. The editor told him they would pay $5 for every cartoon they accepted. He sent four, and they took three of them.

“One Sunday, my father was smiling, and he held up a magazine to me to show me one of my drawings,” Sandridge said. “It was a pivotal point for me. I realized I could make a living with art.”

It wasn’t long after that a friend in the creative display industry approached Sandridge.

“I could draw, and I had done one painting,” he said. “We were poor, so I made a canvas out of a bed sheet and stretched it on a frame. “I might not have been a painter, but I needed the job.”

Branching out

When the men in suits came to see Sandridge, they stopped by his billboard and were astounded it was painted by hand. The company he worked for would later win an award for it, but by that time Sandridge had already started down a path that would put his work in front of millions, and Coca-Cola would become a theme in his history.

For a time, Sandridge painted billboards specifically for Coke. He’d leave the work soon after, heading back to Gadsden and into business for himself. He started painting wall murals and later launched his own art studio. City administration took notice of his success and asked him to help design the art program for the local board of education.

One day, Coca-Cola came calling again. This time though, it wasn’t with a job offer.

“I got a letter,” he said. “Then I got a call and then another letter. They said, ‘If you put your painting in print there will be a lawsuit.’”

Sandridge had sent a painting of a black child drinking Coca-Cola to the company. He was looking for extra funds to support his family, and at first the company was angry. But then, the painting got passed around the office.

Joan Becker, a former licensing manager at Coke, wanted Sandridge to come to Atlanta this time, and she asked he bring the painting.

“They loved it,” he said. “They gave me permission to use their logo and bottles as long as they were accurate, and that’s just what I did.”

Sandridge became the first black American to be licensed by Coca-Cola International. His paintings, mostly period pieces of black Americans enjoying the beverage — think Norman Rockwell — were plastered onto serving trays and other memorabilia and distributed across the nation. The branding was so popular, the first original painting he sold from the series went for $30,000.

“At the time, it was the highest I had earned for a painting,” he said.

Further growth

His contract with Coke ran from 1990-1996, and in 1996 he was commissioned by the Olympic Soccer Committee to create a sculpture for the Atlanta Games. Since then, he’s become a published author, telling his family’s story in the work Red Book and Cotton.

In 2010, he launched into a style of art he deemed “Numinousneoism,” which he said draws from his African heritage and attempts to teach understanding.

“I was born to do art,” he said. “It’s my religion, my life. And the message that races can live in peace without trying to change each other but trying to understand each other is what I want to inspire, especially in children.”

Work from the Chelsea artist’s Numinousneoism collection is being displayed at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute through March 23. Sandridge said about 150 pieces, as well as copies of Red Book and Cotton, are for sale, and a portion of the proceeds support his nonprofit, The No. 2 Pencil Foundation. The Foundation, he said, seeks to “inspire children and teens to develop their imaginations.”

The Civil Rights Institute at 520 16th St. N. is open six days a week. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Sunday. 

For more, visit johnsolomonsandridge.com.