Artist Reggie Ford
Every weekend, you can find local artist Reggie Ford selling his paintings on the corner of Decatur and St. Ann. Often adorned in his Saints cap, Ford has become a pillar of the New Orleans community. Beyond his artistry, Ford is a fierce advocate for the city on social media and has played a major role in revitalizing the historic Lincoln Beach.
Born and raised in New Orleans, Ford knows the city like the back of his hand. As he drifted through different public schools in his adolescence, he began to realize that his struggle with dyslexia set him apart from his peers. "All the other kids were able to articulate themselves through writing, and I couldn't," Ford said. "By the fourth grade, I knew I was a little different from the rest of the students. I loved art so much, but I was not good at other aspects of the curriculum."
While many of the public schools that Ford attended in his youth lacked access to basic art materials, Ford found inspiration at the Martin Behrman Charter School Academy of Creative Arts and Sciences. "That's where I learned about art. It changed my life," he explained. "The NASA Young Astronauts program opened my mind up to the sciences, which I still have a love for to this day."
Ford had always been confident that he was destined to be an artist, but it wasn't until a friend gifted him a set of paints that his ambition truly took shape. "I knew what kind of artist I was going to be when he handed me the oil paints," imparted Ford. "That was a changing time in my life when I got those paints."
Despite his passion, Ford was discouraged from pursuing art professionally in his youth. Determined to fund his future as an artist, Ford turned to ventures including college football, cutting hair, working at Pat O'Brien's, and selling CDs. "Everybody told me if I go straight into art out of high school, I was going to be broke and die broke," Ford admitted. "At the time, they didn't have too many [successful] Black artists."
Just months before Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, Ford's side hustle as an artist began to look promising. "[It felt like] I could really just make a living off of my craft," Ford recalled.
When Ford returned to New Orleans post-Katrina in April 2006, his artistry took off like never before. "People bought art like crazy for three years straight. Anything you could paint, they were buying it," he said.
Ford's success as an artist not only allowed him to purchase his childhood home but also gave him the opportunity to give back to his community. When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down New Orleans, Ford decided to join his friend, Sage Michael, in restoring Lincoln Beach.
NOLA's Lincoln Beach
Opened in the late 1930s in New Orleans East, Lincoln Beach served as the only destination where Black New Orleanians could swim in Lake Pontchartrain. Resembling a smaller version of the "whites only" Pontchartrain Beach amusement park, Lincoln Beach featured rides, games, restaurants, a swimming pool, and live performance spaces for legendary musicians such as Nat King Cole, Fats Domino, The Neville Brothers, and more.
Once a hot spot for recreation, the historic beach fell into disrepair following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Although visiting the beach is officially prohibited by the city of New Orleans, it is not uncommon to see locals enjoying the area on a hot summer day.
Alongside Sage Michael, Tricia "Blyss" Wallace, and many other devoted citizens, Ford dedicated countless hours to cleaning up and preserving Lincoln Beach. "I started going out there seven days a week. Eventually, I was out there for like 1,300 days straight," he explained.
One of the biggest obstacles that Ford faced was emptying the former entrance to the beach—a flooded tunnel that ran through the levy and under the train tracks. He recalled, "When I got there, the flooded tunnel had about 80,000 gallons of water." With a water pump, an excavator, and the help of some friends, he cleared out over six tons of debris and thousands of gallons of water from the tunnel. With the tunnel still prone to flooding, Ford has to pump out the water about every two weeks.
Ford explained, "My help with Lincoln Beach was showing how clean it could be, maintaining that, getting people emotionally invested in it, and getting the government financially invested in it." He often promotes the beach to his upwards of 70,000 Instagram followers to garner support for its redevelopment. Additionally, he promotes what he calls a "culture of cleanliness," having collected over 6,000 bags of trash from the beach with Sage Michael. "Every time you step onto Lincoln Beach, it was my duty to my community to have not one piece of litter be on the ground," Ford extolled.
Future of Lincoln Beach
In March 2024, Congressman Troy Carter secured $4.1 million in federal funding for a bridge to Lincoln Beach, and Mayor LaToya Cantrell's Office announced $24.6 million in redevelopment funding from bond money and other sources. Redevelopment plans constructed by Sasaki, the design firm hired to create a master plan, revealed a number of concepts including features such as a waterfront restaurant, a drive-in movie theatre, a museum, fishing piers, and more. The beach, which could reopen in 2026, will be New Orleans' first public beach in decades.
While construction commences at the beach, Ford has been enjoying the views from his art stand just outside the St. Louis Cathedral. "You see car wrecks, you see people getting proposed to, you see marriages, you see everything," Ford proffered. "You see life."
Voices of Lincoln Beach event at St. Augustine High School, located at 2600 A P Tureaud Ave. will be occurring from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on March 29, 2025.
