Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/251767
James Pate kept hearing one common phrase: "The black community has put the Ku Klux Klan out of business." The implication? That black-on-black violence has reached epidemic levels, comparable to the violent savagery of the KKK and the Jim Crow era. "We're always say- ing that," says Pate, seated in a small North Sarasota Library con- ference room, just an hour before the library kicks off a month- long display showcasing reproductions of his charcoal drawings and paintings. Those works make very literal that phrase about the KKK, depicting young black males dressed in the white robes of the Klan, brandish- ing pistols and Uzis, o f t e n j u x t a p o s e d w i t h b a c k g r o u n d renderings of heroic moments from black A m e r i c a n h i s t o r y, Defenders of the Corner by James Pate. All images courtesy Danae DeShazer, Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County ARTIST JAMES PATE AIMS TO PROVOKE WITH KKK-THEMED EXHIBITION AT NORTH SARASOTA LIBRARY 'EXTREMELY EXTREME' I need to do it for my own blues. James Pate Artist By Cooper Levey-Baker Associate Editor