Rural Art Hero

Thesley Beverly is the art czar, and maybe the heart and soul, of Pembroke, Illinois, population 2800. Pembroke is ninety percent black and the town was thrust onto the national stage in 2002 after a New York Times article called attention to the poverty (read: vermin and empty cupboards) that’s like a pestilence on the place. Mr. Beverly, writes Jeff Felshman in Swindle, “lives and teaches in a narrow one-room cinderblock house with a low ceiling, heated by a wood-burning stove, the floor made of thin planks painted in squares of black and white.” It’s Mr. Beverly’s command station, actually, and it’s from here that he wages a campaign to energize the arts in his village with local theater, violin lessons for kids, and, among other things, invitations to artists to reside in Pembroke. (More on Swindle Magazine here.)