Born on Christmas Day, 1926, Bernice Sims lived all her life in rural and small town southern Alabama. She said she did not notice the racial divisions in the American South when she was a child, because “everybody was just poor.” As she grew up though, her eyes were opened and she became a witness to social injustice and a participant in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s.

Although she had an early interest in painting, there was no time for it until relatively late in life. After years of working hard to earn a living and single-handedly raising her six children, Sims resolved to continue her education at the local community college. She began to paint & found her own style with the encouragement of an art instructor at th...