Charles Mills

Background

Mills was born on December 14, 1920, in New York City and grew up in Harlem.

Education

He attended an arts high school in Manhattan.

Career

As a youth, Mills learned about his roots through his frequent visits to a collection of books on African-American culture and history located on the second floor of a building on 135th Street, a collection that was later placed in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Mills served in the United States Army and after completing his military service worked as a medical illustrator at the Virginia Medical Center in Brooklyn. He moved to South Florida in 1985, settling in Fort Lauderdale.

His mural at the entrance to Sistrunk Boulevard in his adopted home town, commissioned by the City of Fort Lauderdale, have been considered his greatest work, telling the story of the African-American experience from slavery to modern times.

In 2009, the Jim Moran Foundation honored him as an African-American Achiever for his six decades of painting and his focus on the African-American experience. Mills died at age 88 on October 20, 2009, at a hospice in Pembroke Pines, Florida.

Achievements

• His work Wall of History, a mural depicting centuries of African-American history, located at the entrance to downtown Fort Lauderdale"s Sistrunk Boulevard, has been called his greatest achievement.