Born 1948 Birmingham, Alabama

Larry Aldridge has been creative for most of his life. He was born into a family of four children. His father was a Veteran of WWW II who returned home to work in the coal mines. His mother had grown up in the coal mining region of Powderly near Birmingham as well. After his father was injured working in the coal mines, he became very religious and tried to start a church and began preaching “Tent Revivals”, doing various jobs and moving his family often. Larry and his brother Tommy were urged by their parents to sing gospel hymns in public places to earn money to buy supplies for the poor. The children’s mother took them to Bessemer where they sang hymns for a gospel radio station on a regular basis. Larry’s mother began to have mental health issues and their marriage dissolved.

His father struggled to raise the four children alone but an incident hampered this: The KKK burned a cross in their yard one night which frightened the family, so his father placed the four children in the Alabama Baptist Children Home in Troy, Alabama. Larry was in the third grade. He experienced some happy times in the children’s home and learned to love art there. During “vacation stays” with relatives in Birmingham, Larry and his brother witnessed numerous civil rights protests downtown. Alabama was then segregated by law and custom. The Birmingham Larry knew was ruled by the infamous Mayor Bull Connor. Buses had separate seating and fierce dogs were turned loose on protesters.

Eventually Larry ran away from the children’s home and went to live permanently in the Birmingham projects with his Grandmother. He quit school at sixteen and became part of LBJ’s Neighborhood Youth Core. When they asked what he liked to do, he replied “art.” and they arranged a job for him working for the Birmingham traffic department painting crosswalks for the City.

When he got his draft notice a couple of years later, he joined the Army at 18 and was stationed in Germany for three years with Army Intelligence. After getting out of the Army, he traveled in Europe. He had gotten his GED while in the Army. He decided to return to Alabama to attend college and returned to Troy, Alabama where his brothers still were. He attended Troy State University and received a degree in European History.

He married and became a father to two children. After this he held various jobs until becoming a security guard for a local trucking company, which he did for nearly 18 years.  “One of my responsibilities was to take care of up to thirteen guard dogs. The dogs were perfect subjects to paint. There were many times the dogs produced artistic moments or emotions that I conveyed in my paintings.” Whenever Larry had money for art supplies, he loved to paint still using some techniques that he used painting street crosswalks in his youth. He also began writing poetry.

After his wife of 49 years died in 2023, Larry began to devote full time to painting and writing. His works are in many collections now.

In Larry’s own words here, he tells of a happening in his life as a child, that he thought might have started the Civil Rights movement.

Available Works

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