David Ramey
David Ramey
Some People Call It Progress
An online exhibition
Thursday, September 12, 2024-Saturday, November 2, 2024
Some People Call It Progress showcases a selection of artworks by the late artist David Ramey (1939-2017). Ramey worked as a train conductor on the Norfolk and Western Railway and documented Black life in Roanoke, Virginia. Through his writings and a prolific body of work in colored pencil, graphite, and ink, Ramey dedicated the later years of his life to preserving his memories of the Gainsboro and Northeast neighborhoods as they existed in 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Between 1955-1980, the artist witnessed the destruction of his community as Black residents and businesses were displaced, and numerous properties were destroyed due to eminent domain. Ramey’s detailed imagery resonates with collective nostalgia for a community lost due to ill-conceived plans for “urban renewal” inherently fueled by racial discrimination.
Bellow, Fort Gansevoort, and the artist's son, David Ramey Junior, discuss David Ramey Senior's role as a social historian and the importance of place as a source of his creative inspiration.
“For all of the people who do not know me, my name is David Ramey Sr. I have lived in the Roanoke Valley many years. I have witnessed many changes in the city, once known as Big Lick, Magic City and The Star City of the South. Drawing and painting are my favorite hobbies. Anything I see, I can put it on paper or on a canvas. So let me take you back in time in this city called Roanoke, Virginia. Most people today have no idea what took place in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. Join me now on a trip back, as seen through my eyes..."
- David Ramey
Community Drug Store on Henry Street
Fort Gansevoort: Hello David. I am honored to speak with you today about your late father—the artist David Ramey. Why don't we start our conversation at the beginning of your father's life. Can you tell me where your father was born?
David Ramey Jr.: My father was born in a very small place called Martinsville, VA. It was way, way back in the woods. It’s a small community. And that's where he was born. He lived a very colorful life there as a young child.
FG: And when did his family first move to the Gainsboro neighborhood in Roanoke, Virginia?
DR: I believe around 1949. I think he was around nine or ten years old when they moved there. He was born in 1939, so that would be about right. My grandfather’s sister was married, and they lived in Gainsboro. Her husband and herself had a duplex apartment and they allowed my father, my father's younger brother George, and my grandmother to live in the upstairs apartment on Patton Ave. That's when my father fell in love with Henry Street and Northeast.
FG: What did your father tell you about his life in Gainsboro when he was a child or teenager? What was his life like?
DR: I really think that my father’s younger years in Gainsboro, especially the commercial thoroughfare of Henry Street, left a very strong mark on his mind and his character. He loved that time of his life. Everything you needed was there in the community. You had a supermarket, you had a library, you had a funeral home. There was the Catholic Church, of course. There was so much to take in and so much he loved.
David Ramey, Untitled, 1996
FG: And your father, David Ramey, worked for the Norfolk and Western Railway, right?
DR: He did.
FG: I know that he made numerous drawings about railroad workers. Can you describe the role of the railroad in Roanoke when your father was alive?
DR: The railroad was very important. It had a very powerful role. My father was very fortunate that he got hired there. He really loved the railroad. I can remember him packing his lunches and getting ready to go to work early in the morning or late at night. He worked different shifts. He was always on call. So whatever time they called him in he just went.
FG: What did he do on the railroad?
DR: I think his first position was just part of a gang. He repaired tracks and things like that, and then later on he was promoted to conductor.
“Let's go on the road with Norfolk and Western places and times from Roanoke to Bluefield West VA with 100,000 tons of snow. Knee deep and cold. Nothing stops the train from delivering freight and being on time. On a regular job we never stopped and talked to people who live on our route. Just a friendly wave or a blast of the horns. […] Since a small boy, I always loved trains and since I have become a man I spent 24 years on the railroad. While working there, I've met a lot of fun fellows…”
- David Ramey
Workers at the Norfolk Western Railway shops, circa 1900s
FG: When I look at the drawings that David Ramey made of railroad workers, I sense your father’s reverence for manual labor. There is a sense of camaraderie among his subjects and the faces seem very specific. Do you think he was depicting specific coworkers? Or do you think that he's filling them in with more generalized faces?
DR: I think they're both. He definitely drew some specific workers because that's how his coworkers found out about his “hidden talent.” At work he would do drawings of some of his coworkers, and he would do them in a cartoon-like form. If a guy had a double chin, he'd make the chin really long. He would exaggerate different characteristics of individuals so you knew who they were. He did many drawings of his coworkers, many funny drawings. And they just loved them. The drawings became very popular around the yard and around the offices.
David Ramey, Days of Steam Inspection on 611, 1993
FG: There's one drawing in particular that was included in the recent exhibition David Ramey: Gainsboro Road and Beyond at the Taubman Museum of Art. It feels like a self-portrait of your father. The drawing is inscribed with the words “Days of Steam Inspection Time on 611.” It depicts a man holding a hammer standing on the railroad tracks. The way the subject confronts the viewer, looking directly at you with his confidence, reads like a self-portrait. Do you know which drawing I'm talking about?
DR: I know exactly what drawing you are talking about. I feel the same way. He never confirmed it to me, but yes, I really think that it is a self-portrait of him.
FG: It's interesting that he decided to picture himself in this identity, as a railroad worker. He must have been proud of his profession. It was something he felt was important for him to document.
DR: Yes, he was very proud of the work he did on the railroad. There was a little boy in community who was diagnosed with cancer. My father would take him to see some of the engines and let him get on the trains. My father was very close to this young man. And he spent a lot of time with him and shared a lot with him, especially where the railroad was concerned.
Gentleman on Henry Street, circa 1930s
FG: It sounds like David Ramey was a very compassionate and generous man. Do you think being raised in the Gainsboro community shaped his character and his sense of belong?
DR: Absolutely. Transitioning from a boy to a teenager to a young man, he experienced all the important phases of life in Gainsboro. He spent an ample amount of time on Henry Street. There were always people around and everyone looked out for each other.
FG: Ramey really did capture the spontaneity of everyday life and the vibrancy of Gainsboro in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. You can see how important it was to him to capture very specific details about his neighborhood and to document his world through his drawings. That’s what makes them so powerful.
DR: I agree with you. And what’s really amazing was his ability to draw from his memory. We’re not talking about something that happened a few days ago, we’re talking about events that happened fifty or sixty years before he made a drawing.
FG: Going back to the railroad drawings, there is another work I want to discuss called Chow Time. It has a very distinctive composition.
DR: The one with the roof off the top of the train?
FG: Yes, exactly. The roof of the structure has been removed to reveal the people inside a dining car. There are people eating at communal tables, but you can also see the exterior of the surrounding train yard at the same time. It’s really interesting to me that he decided to depict an interior and exterior scene in the same frame.
DR: Inside you can see the stack of pancakes, the skillets and pans, the guys sitting at the table. Then you look outside and see the bulldozer. It was a very unique way he made this drawing without the roof. He shows what is impossible to see in real life—how different groups of people live their lives all at once.
FG: So many of Ramey’s drawings demonstrate his facility for documenting specific details, but this work really showcases his imagination and experimentation with different modes of pictorial representation. The way he constructed this image, the viewpoint is from an elevated perspective looking down on the people in the scene. It is a very powerful and commanding view. In my opinion, this gesture makes you conscious of the artist’s authorship as a storyteller and an image-maker. It makes you think about what he chooses the show and what not to show. What do you think of that?
David Ramey, Chow Time, 1993
DR: It's hard to describe. But yes, [Chow Time] does show the uniqueness of his imagination. It shows a personal perspective. Like he is telling a story in his own style.
FG: To me, his choice to presents all the visual information at once functions like the structure of a story. The exterior imagery is like the narration that describes the setting of the story. And the interior, with all the hustle and bustle, immediately immerses the viewer in the action of the scene. You can almost imagine the dialogue of the many conversations taking place.
DR: Right. He wants everybody to understand what he experienced and the way he remembers working on the railroad and life on Henry Street and what that was like.
FG: Not only Chow Time, but all of Ramey’s drawings have an inviting tone. He wants the viewer to be invested in the world he is creating. And I think he accomplishes this. His themes and subject matter are very relatable.
DR: That was his ability and his gift.
Hunton Life Saving & First Aid Crew vehicle
Courtesy of the Roanoke Public Library
FG: The bird's-eye-view we are talking about that David Ramey used in Chow Time, I see that reoccurring in many of his drawings. Oftentimes the viewer is looking over a cityscape. I assume most are of Gainsboro in particular. Do you think your father was interested in map making? Or at least mapping his own neighborhood? Do you think it was important to him to make visual records for future generations? Can you talk a little bit about that?
DR: Yes. I mean a lot of individuals in Roanoke credit my father with being able to remember and preserve Henry Street in Gainsboro and Northeast true to how it was [before urban renewal]. The history of Gainsboro is very important. The Hunton Life Saving Crew was established in 1941 and located in Gainsboro. That crew was the first all-black volunteer rescue squad in the United States. It was right here in the black community.
Courtesy of Roanoke Times & World News
FG: When I came to visit Roanoke I walked by the original building, which was really special to see since there aren't many original buildings still standing that were part of the Gainsboro neighborhood, isn’t that right?
DR: Yes, it’s very sad. Gainsboro was a very important community. Northeast was also a very important community, and my father loved these places. When urban renewal started being talked about, and people in the community knew eventually it would happen, he didn't feel like he had much time left before it was all gone. When he started drawing and writing, many years later, he wanted to record as much of it as he possibly could, so individuals who came up with him could look back, and individuals who never had the opportunity to see what the community was like could look back. His work gives you a sense of what it was like to live back in that time and how everybody looked out for everybody and respected one another. People had good values and principles that were instilled in them, and they had pride in being a part of that community.
FG: Yes. David Ramey was more than an artist; he was also a social historian. He was preserving, like you said, records of what life was like in Gainsboro and on Henry Street before those buildings, nearly all of those buildings if I'm not mistaken, were destroyed. Did your father ever talk about the reaction of the community?
DR: Oh, yes! It hit really close to home with my family. My grandfather eventually had to leave Roanoke searching for employment. It's a long story, but it didn't end well. And it was all triggered by eminent domain.
FG: Where did most of the residents who were living in Gainsboro, like your family, move to when they were displaced?
DR: They constructed projects. That's where the majority of people went. And to the Northwest area. But mainly Lincoln Terrace. That’s the project where most of the people went. And there were so many people. And those were the fortunate people. What about the people who didn't have anywhere to go? What about the people who had investments in real-estate that got destroyed? Back then, that's where all of your family money went—into your real estate. Money went into the home to strengthen the home, to build the home. To keep families in the community together. And when that was gone, everything was gone. I really hate to think about the less fortunate individuals.
David Ramey, Untitled
FG: So do I.
DR: So many of those people were homeowners and business owners. It was a self-sustaining community. It had everything you needed. Doctor's offices, they had lawyers, entertainment. Anything you could possibly want in a community was there.
FG: Why don't we talk about some of the identifiable places that show up in your father's drawings? There's one drawing of a woman who's wearing a blue-and-pink striped dress with a pink hat. She is underneath a sign that says “Horseshoe Cafe.” Across the street there's a business with a sign that says “Nick's Cafe.” And then in the background there's the Ebony Club. Can you tell me a little bit about any one of those businesses?
DR: The Horseshoe and Nick's were diners that my dad loved. He would talk about the homemade greens and cornbread, black eyed peas, ribs, and fried chicken. And how his grandfather and grandmother would take him up there on Sundays and have dinner.
“If anyone reading this lived through the 50's and 60's, they could tell you what I'm talking about. Every place that had a sign hanging outside, like Nick's Restaurant, Horseshoe Cafe, Dumas Coffee Shop, or Dell's Cafe, you can bet any of these places would offer you a full course meal and homemade dessert, apple pie or peach cobbler.”
- David Ramey
David Ramey, Untitled, 1995
FG: That’s a nice memory. And what do you know about the Ebony Club?
DR: The Ebony Club has been named several different clubs over the years, but it was a spot for live entertainment. And no matter what the name was, the club was always jumping.
FG: If I'm not mistaken that's one of the very few buildings that still remains on Henry Street today and was not destroyed due to redevelopment. Is that correct?
DR: That's true. The building is now a culinary school.
FG: I didn’t realize that. I’m glad it is being used. The Ebony Club shows up as a notable location in numerous of your father’s drawings and stories.
“The Ebony Club was once a movie house for many years in the early 19th century. Later, it became the Merico Club which drew a lot of people during the mid-forty’s up to the mid-fifty’s. Some where during the early sixty’s it became the Ebony Club. This brought up a lot of talent to Roanoke such as “Little Willy John, Etta James, Billy Knight and his band, James Watts, and they boy without hands (he sang and played the piano with his feet). The Ebony Club had a great deal of entertainment going on during the late 50’s and early 60’s. During those days there was no air conditioning, just big floor fans to cool the building down. The side doors were also where you could find me and my friends. We had no money to buy a ticket so we made our way to the side door and watched the show.
Sometimes a door man would run us away but we would always come back. The people inside would be dancing and wiping sweat. You could feel the heat coming through the open door. But no one paid that heat no mind, the music was good, the drinks were great, and the party was live; seemed like they danced all night."
- David Ramey
FG: That said, I think we have to talk about Ramey’s writings and his interest in bookmaking. It is just as important a part of his artistic legacy as the drawings are. From what I've seen, Ramey’s images and words are usually intertwined. More often than not, there is a hand-written page that accompanies a drawing. And when he was conceptualizing books, it seems as though he created a rule or requirement for himself that there be an even number of written pages and drawn pages.
This choice to have a linguistic description for every image seems very deliberate. It’s like he didn’t want to leave anything to chance to accidentally be misinterpreted by the viewer. I think it’s his way of controlling the narrative so he could tell the exact story he wanted to tell in his own voice without any other mediation.
DR: That’s right. And he self-published too.
FG: Yes, that’s really taking control. He had a very graphic sensibility from the outset of making his work. The one-to-one ratio of the drawings to writings is just one example of his attitude towards graphic design and layout and sequencing as part of his overall artwork. Not only are his drawings and written manuscript pages original artworks on their own, but the compiled, printed book is also a completed work of art…and literature, I should say.
DR: From time to time people will call me, ask me do I have any copies or whatever, and I'll still go to the very same person that printed them from the very beginning and they'll run me off something.
FG: That's very special to still have that relationship. It would be really interesting to see some of the manuscript pages and original drawings for other books that weren't realized during Ramey’s lifetime to be published posthumously.
The drawings and the writings that were displayed in the exhibition Gainsboro Road and Beyond at the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke last year were in essence just that, right? They all seem to belong to a book that was never realized by your father.
DR: Yes. You're right.
“Hill Top Grocery was one of the many stores on Gainsboro Rd. and Peach Rd. This business was run by a man we called Genny Holands and his wife. They sold almost everything. Right next to the store was a small restaurant called the Hill Top Grill which they owned also. At the grill you could get a hot dog, bag of chips, and a soda under 35¢.”
- David Ramey
David Ramey, Untitled, 1990
FG: And then simultaneously at the Harrison Museum of African American Art, they displayed the other half of the exhibition with some of the original drawings and writings that were part of The Times and Life on Henry Street. Is that correct?
DR: Yes, absolutely. You got it.
FG: Charles Price and his wife Anita, who run the Harrison Museum, are very invested in preserving the history of Roanoke and of Gainesboro. Your father’s work fits right into their mission. Charles knew your father, didn’t he? Do I have that right?
DR: Yes, he knew him. They knew each other. They weren't good friends or anything like that. But they knew who one another were. Mr. Price, Charles, he's actually one of those people that really had something to do with proactive and positive things within the community back then. And even so right now.
FG: It seems that way. The work he is doing really celebrates the history and accomplishments of Roanoke’s Black community. I mean, I think it's too simplistic to look at a community like Gainsboro and only focus on the trauma of a neighborhood that was destroyed. And the fate of Gainsboro is the story of so many cities and communities across America that were bulldozed to build highways and redeveloped as a result of President Truman’s erroneously named “Fair Deal.” I think its apt that James Baldwin referred to “urban renewal” as “Negro removal.”
What I find so lovely about your father's work is that he's not trying to tell the story of trauma or loss. He's trying to tell the story of all the good times that he was proud to be a part of and that he witnessed.
David Ramey, Harry Franklyn Pool Hall
DR: He does capture a lot of the good times in his writings, but at the very end of a story, he'll sometimes say something about how the times have changed, and not for the better. And that's just the way it is.
FG: He was a realist.
DR: Yes. And he loved all people. But don't get me wrong, he raised me and my brother up straight. And he was very firm. And a strong believer.
FG: I'd love to talk about and a few more drawings. There's a drawing that your father made of a billiards hall. It's called Harry Franklyn Pool Hall. Did your father play pool?
DR: Yes, he wasn't a shark or anything like that, but he was a goods sportsman. He used to take me hunting. When my dad took me out he would hit the most rabbits and squirrels. He was just good that way. He was good with his hands. Building things, hunting, drawing, writing.
FG: He also fixed and inspected trains. It seemed like he really liked doing tactile activities.
DR: Yes.
FG: To go back to that pool hall drawing, I'm looking at a poster he included in the drawing that says “James Brown, June 9th.” Do you think that was perhaps a reference to an actual advertisement?
DR: I definitely think it was advertising for [James Brown] coming to town to perform somewhere. He was probably referencing a real ad he saw from his photographic memory. It’s those details that adds more to his drawings, to give you a guide, a guide through the work to make sure you know it’s history, not fiction.
Shooting pool at the Hunton YMCA, circa 1960s
Courtesy of the Gainsboro Branch, Roanoke City Public Library
FG: I trust that you could even use his drawings, especially when specific dates are included, as historical markers. If one were to go and do some research and cross reference events depicted in his drawings with historical newspapers, I bet you find specific concerts or political events that are depicted in your father's work. That dedication to accuracy takes Ramey’s art to another level.
DR: It's his life. So he tried his best to be as accurate as possible in his writings and the images.
FG: I think it is also important to note the way he dated his drawings. I’ve noticed instances where he has included two dates. A date from the 40s or 50s (the date of the scene depicted in the drawings) and a date from the 90s (when he made the works). Including both really underlines the multifaceted nature of Ramey’s overall project. His work is archival, and it’s personal narrative. The drawings were also Ramey’s way to generate his own material culture in order to reconstruct a lost part of history.
DR: That is an interesting observation.
FG: For those who are looking at your father's work for the first time, what's one thing you would want them to know about your father, either as a person or as an artist?
David Ramey, Untitled
DR: That anything he drew was something dear to him. He used his God-given talents to preserve a certain way of life. A life that he got to experience, and to be a part of, that no longer exists. He wanted to make sure that other individuals who didn't have an opportunity to come up in that time could still see and know what it was like. He wanted to share his own experience and knowledge. That’s why I believe he wrote and made pictures. They are very personal. He didn't want anyone to misunderstand his life.
FG: Thank you David. I really appreciate your time and I feel like I got to know David Ramey a little bit better through speaking with you.
DR: Of course. It was my pleasure.
"Some people call it progress but others call it something else. What would you call it? A street with almost everything you would need: doctors, dentists, drugstore, movie theatre, shoe shops, restaurants, clothing stores, taxi stands, a couple hotels, several clubs, grocery stores, pool halls, plenty of entertainment, soda shops for the younger group; and a Gateway to Downtown. Well maybe that was the whole problem. Black business was too close to downtown. Sure, some places and buildings were a little old and outdated, but nothing that a little plaster and a few nails couldn’t fix. No, the people downtown had other plans. They wanted to bring downtown across the bridge and make Henry Street a part of downtown Roanoke. And with our Mayor. This plan worked with the white people in full control of our once own Henry Street. A place where blacks could come and dine and dance and relax; there was always something to do on Henry Street [...] Our neighborhood is gone but not our good memories. Never forget the Good old Days of Henry Street."
- David Ramey
*All David Ramey Sr. quotations included in this presentation are excerpted from the artist's self published book "The Times and Life on Henry Street" ©2012 David Ramey Sr. and the artist's unpublished manuscript for "Gainsboro Road and Beyond" ©2014 David Ramey Sr.
David Ramey
Chow Time
1993
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Before Diesel was Manpower
1993
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
2010
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Wreck Crew
1994
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Quitting Time
1993
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
2002
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Campbell Ave Downtown Roanoke
Graphite and ink on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Campbell Ave Roanoke
Graphite and pen on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Harry Franklyn Pool Hall
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
11 x 8.5 in
David Ramey
Untitled
1996
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
1996
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
2010
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
1990
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
1995
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
2008
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Dorthy Smith at The Horse Shoe
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
2010
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Midnight 15th St
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Mid Night 15th
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
11 x 8.5 in
David Ramey
Untitled
2008
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Mansion on Patton
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
11 x 8.5 in
David Ramey
Untitled
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Untitled
Graphite pencil and ink on paper
8.5 x 11 in
David Ramey
Days of Steam Inspection Time on 611
1993
Ink graphite and colored pencil on paper
11 x 8.5 in