ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A slice of Florida’s history is on display at the Woodson Museum in St. Petersburg.

A new exhibit called Florida Highwaymen: The Next Generation — The Legacy Continues shows what Florida’s history looked like and the picture it paints for the future.

Ray McLendon is an artist and a descendent one of the famous Florida Highwaymen artists. The Florida Highwaymen are a group of Black painters who started selling their art out of their cars in the 1950s and 1960s during the peak of segregation.

“You have a group of artists, Black men that came along at a time when they couldn’t really do well,” McLendon said. “They were doing a lot of orange grove picking, they were doing a lot of other things. And you can take something like this and you can go into a whole other system.”

Now, many of their paintings are featured in places like the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. The vivid paintings show Florida’s beautiful landscape that goes beyond palm trees and beaches.

The newest exhibition, featured at the Woodson Museum, shows a unique piece of Florida’s Black history is continuing today.

For McLendon, being surrounded by that kind of history made him want to learn how to paint himself and become one of the Florida Highwaymen, just like his father.

“That’s one of the things about the Florida Highwaymen,” he said. “We’re all self-taught. Even though my dad is an original Highwayman, he never taught me. He would show me, but he just wouldn’t teach me. He would say, ‘You need to figure it out for yourself.’”

Judging by his paintings on display at the Woodson Museum, he did figure it out, and he’s hoping his son, Johnny, does, too.

“It feels good being third generation. You know you have the experience that you have to gain in order to be considered as good as your grandfather and your father, but just sticking with it, I’ll get there,” Johnny said.

The exhibit, Florida Highwaymen: The Next Generation — The Legacy Continues will be on display at the Woodson Museum until mid-December.

The Woodson Museum is open Tuesday-Friday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., or call for appointment.